It occurred to me.. crazy egg idea

[SilkieChickenLover336]

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I love this kind of stuff

 

[Kiki]

Following

I love this kind of stuff

Is so cool isn't ..we can learn the easy way...watching someone else go through all the "hard" stuff.

Thanks!!

 

[WilloughbyStead]

Some people freak out and think eggs need to "breathe". So they think paper is best and that bubble wrap will keep the egg from breathing and kill it.

If you are buying shipped eggs you can always ask the seller before committing if they will wrap the egg completely in bubble wrap or any other way you want. I'm guilty of sending eggs in wood shavings, that was probably not a great idea for moisture. But in my defense I had completely wrapped them in bubble wrap, twice over and this idea had not occurred to me yet. We only know what we are taught about shipped eggs and how to or not to do it.

It's hard to say this works better than that and so forth, since you may get a disgruntled postal worker on one day and not another so two shipments on a day apart from the same person may arrive in completely different shapes.

When I first started buying shipped eggs that was exactly my first thought. I was furious that someone had actually wrapped them in bubble wrap. But after experience its quite the opposite. My newspaper, tissue paper, and even paper towel wrapped egg shipments are hardest to hatch regardless of breed. Even the Orpingtons shipped in the same state are a challenge when they weren't wrapped in plastic- usually the typical bubble wrap. I've had exotic eggs arrive from Cali wrapped in bubble wrap hatch very well vs paper wrapped. So, I definitely think moisture has a lot to do with hatchability.

 

[yellowherb]

When I first started buying shipped eggs that was exactly my first thought. I was furious that someone had actually wrapped them in bubble wrap. But after experience its quite the opposite. My newspaper, tissue paper, and even paper towel wrapped egg shipments are hardest to hatch regardless of breed. Even the Orpingtons shipped in the same state are a challenge when they weren't wrapped in plastic- usually the typical bubble wrap. I've had exotic eggs arrive from Cali wrapped in bubble wrap hatch very well vs paper wrapped. So, I definitely think moisture has a lot to do with hatchability.

It just makes sense to me. I was amazed at the difference in the air cells in the wrapped vs non wrapped eggs. Just have to cure that mold issue...

 

[yellowherb]

Just had a quick candle of the 2 previously wrapped 1 week old eggs. Even though they have only been in the incubator a few days I can clearly see (with my experienced eye) that both previously wrapped eggs are fertile and developing. The control egg is not. It may not have been fertile, but I'll give it a few more days before cracking it open and seeing.

so wrapping a bloody pullet egg with no prior disinfection had no effect on it's fertility or development by day 3, same with the clean egg without disinfection.

I would be tempted to ask any seller of eggs to me if they can put them in sandwich bags before bubble wrapping. I'm that confident. And since a shipped egg would not be in the box or mail longer than 4 days I do not think it would have the chance to grow mold like the one wrapped egg I discarded.

 

[yellowherb]

Experiment #2 with alcohol disinfected eggs is still running.

 

[yellowherb]

I've had my chickens locked in their coop recently which gives me the idea of using poopy eggs. The last few I gathered had been trod on with poopy feet..awesome. So tomorrow I'll gather eggs and spritz with alcohol, let dry, then wrap. I'm going for the poopiest eggs I can find!

I would go with muddy, but it hasn't rained in eons.

 

[Kiki]

I love your experiments....please keep them coming!

 

[yellowherb]

I had 7 eggs to play with today. Nice dirty eggs, except 2 which were pretty clean

So I can now share with you all that Isopropyl Alcohol DOES make sharpie markers run..Dont mark your eggs with sharpies and then spray with alcohol lol. Looks like I have 4 bloody eggs but they are just poopy eggs, no blood today.

I decided to go ahead and do 2 experiments with these 7 eggs.

(I had to lock the girls in the coop to get eggs this nasty)

Experiment #3A
4 poopy eggs. 91% Isopropyl alcohol spray, I sprayed them heavily. Allowed them to evaporate the alcohol and then wrapped.
3 eggs were heavily poopied, 1 was reasonably clean and we will call this the control egg.
As mentioned above, sharpie will not stay thru the spray. Mark eggs after spritzing or wrapping lol.

(Side experiment completely accidental will the sharpie running make a difference? could it have leeched into the egg? I normally do use sharpies to date my eggs and have great HR's, so I do not think sharpies are bad for eggs).

Experiment #3B
3 Poopy eggs. NO spraying or anything done before wrapping. I even touched them with my hands since I figure what's on my hands can't be worse than chicken poop.
2 were really poopied, 1 was more clean.

UPDATE ON EXPERIMENT #2
(clean eggs spritzed with 91% Isopropyl Alcohol prior to wrapping and sealing)
These eggs are on day 7. They were wrapped on 3/1. So one week old.. I've set them in the incubator.
They show NO signs of mold or any other nasties.


The 4 eggs from experiment #2. 1 was a bloody pullet egg and it was spritzed and wrapped along with the two clean eggs. The one with some writing on it is the control egg. It was spritzed but not wrapped.


control air cell, mighty large.


Terrible picture, but a wrapped egg air cell. Much smaller than the control.

Since my original post and idea deals with shipping eggs I have decided that a egg should not sit longer than 7 days if it's fresh collected and shipped the following day or shipped no older than 3 days old. So after the Poop Experiment #3, I think we will be able to see how dirt or other contaminates work on eggs during their time wrapped and in a box and if something as simple as Isopropyl alcohol can sanitize the eggs with no harmful effects.

I will point out that I'm using 91% Alcohol. This is less than $2 at walmart. There is another version of Isopropyl alcohol which most people have in their medicinal and is a lower percentage of around 50% and known as rubbing alcohol. I am not using rubbing alcohol and have not tested it. Alcohol is not a great sanitizer, most food industries use a form of Iodine as a sanitizer but I think anything applied to the egg can enter it and I doubt iodine would be good for it..but I could be wrong.

Oxine as someone mentioned @TJChickens would probably work great, but I do not have any...YET

 

[yellowherb]

Joining in here. This may also help with overly porous eggs....

The bloody pullet egg from expt #2 was porous. The air cell in it is as good as the other wrapped eggs from that experiment