It occurred to me.. crazy egg idea

[yellowherb]

So many interesting points in your post.
When attempting to have the eggs draw water I did not warm the eggs. I used room temp eggs in warm water. It was a failed experiment. But warming the eggs and not the water is a idea that's worth trying!

Any eggs that have been wet do not hatch, as you mentioned. My experience with eggs that have gotten wet in the nest is that they go bad in the incubator. The poop or bloody eggs haven't really had as big of a issue. Many of those do make it, but the wet eggs never have.

Upping humidity for older eggs is very interesting. I tend to do staggered sets of eggs, but if ever I have the possibility to try this I definitely will. I dry incubate as a general rule.

I totally agree that the best eggs are from the healthiest breeding stock.

On the topic of sealing a cracked egg... I have done it and been successful a few times and unsuccessful more times than not. I used clear nail polish. You have to candle the egg and make sure you get all of the fractures sealed. There are more than the obvious ones you see and they spider web out from the obvious.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

So many interesting points in your post.
When attempting to have the eggs draw water I did not warm the eggs. I used room temp eggs in warm water. It was a failed experiment. But warming the eggs and not the water is a idea that's worth trying!

Any eggs that have been wet do not hatch, as you mentioned. My experience with eggs that have gotten wet in the nest is that they go bad in the incubator. The poop or bloody eggs haven't really had as big of a issue. Many of those do make it, but the wet eggs never have.

Upping humidity for older eggs is very interesting. I tend to do staggered sets of eggs, but if ever I have the possibility to try this I definitely will. I dry incubate as a general rule.

I totally agree that the best eggs are from the healthiest breeding stock.

On the topic of sealing a cracked egg... I have done it and been successful a few times and unsuccessful more times than not. I used clear nail polish. You have to candle the egg and make sure you get all of the fractures sealed. There are more than the obvious ones you see and they spider web out from the obvious.

Thank you. You have made many interesting points as well.

When I wash my eggs, I use pretty warm water. Air bubbles will escape out of the the eggs. It tests the integrity of the shell...if the shell isn't strong enough, the egg will crack from the internal pressure...lol. I make sure to use a clean, bleached white towel and let the eggs air dry. I always make certain nothing is around the egg to contaminate it as it cools. That why I thought heating the egg would pull the cooler water in...if that's what you were wanting to accomplish.

I am the same as you in regards to hatching. I stagger hatch with dry incubation as well. I happened to try a hatch last October of various older eggs. The old eggs in the middle were the ones that had the highest hatch rate simply because of how I had controlled the humidity.

I have tried to seal a cracked egg a few times and failed miserably. I used top coat nail polish...lol. It seems it's not in the cards for me to succeed at this technique...lol.

 

[yellowherb]

I'm back with a few experiments. These are going to depend on hubby getting my turner working again. I've had the incubator down for a few months while doing home improvements.

The story goes that the possums are making me crazy! I've lost some good brooding hens to possums and today a whole nest of eggs I was about to put in the incubator (other than a couple it missed)

Did I mention I've been pretty busy? A while back, and I'm talking months, I gathered up a bunch of eggs and stuck in the fridge to use. I used mostly the white sultan eggs first because I had a idea of doing a more controlled sex experiment like we talked about earlier, the one where you refrigerate the eggs, I kept the brown eggs because I am doing a color project with the sultans and wanted to hatch more that "could" have color..anyway, time flys and I did not get around to it and somehow my bowl of eggs was shoved to the back of the lowest refrigerator shelf. I thought my husband had thrown them out when they come up missing. WELL, I found them yesterday while cleaning out the fridge.

I did a quick candle just to see how terrible the air cells were and actually they are not that bad. If you didn't know better you would think they are about 1-2 weeks old. The hen who laid most of those eggs was taken in a possum attack and although I have her sister I miss the hen's color in my flock. So I'm going to set these ancient eggs, and I mean like 3-4 months ancient, although they have been in the fridge the entire time.

So experiment A is very old refrigerated eggs.
I expect that half will be early quitters just due to being roosters and more susceptible to the cold. If any develop at all, that is. I marked these eggs with O to stand for Old.

Experiment B will be the few surviving eggs from the shed and the possum raid. They were covered in busted egg goo and washed in cool tap water and patted dry. They are marked with W

I've added some reasonably fresh eggs to fill up the egg tray and act as control. With luck and after the cold eggs have sweated it out, I will set these this evening.

 

[Molpet]

will be interesting to see if any of the old hatch

 

[yellowherb]

Sadly I just candled and ZERO of the old eggs show development. I was hoping that it was just hard to see because they are light brown but every other egg I set that day shows very clear development and judging by the date I set them I would know if they were developing or not. FAIL

All of the washed eggs from B group are doing fine though. I washed them in plain tap water and it was cool tap water.

 

[Molpet]

Sadly I just candled and ZERO of the old eggs show development. I was hoping that it was just hard to see because they are light brown but every other egg I set that day shows very clear development and judging by the date I set them I would know if they were developing or not. FAIL

All of the washed eggs from B group are doing fine though. I washed them in plain tap water and it was cool tap water.

Well now we know the old egg not hatching is not a old wives tale.
And washing eggs work, even after a possum.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Cool on the washing. Old eggs confirmed as no go also good to know.

Everytime I wander into a store with fertilized eggs I am tempted to buy them to put under my hens and see what happens... don’t do it as hubby is worried about baby roosters being born.

 

[yellowherb]

There are a few people around who hatched fertilized eggs from Trader Joe's (you may find the links by looking for trader joe eggs). I think most have come out with hens if they hatch. Just from my own experience with refrigerated eggs, the males tend to die around day 4 incubation. That's not saying you can't get a male, because you can..But the majority of the ones I hatched from cold eggs were females.

I have a ton of eggs waiting to go in the incubator and it's tempting to do this "experiment" with cold eggs again. Roosters really are not a issue for me though, I take them to a livestock auction and try not to think about what they will be used for. I have a bunch of button quail eggs too, maybe I should run this cold egg thing with both quail eggs and chicken eggs.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

I would do it but hubby is all wound up that a rooster maybe born. I have tried to explain it would be low % but he got it in his head every Egg will be a rooster... till his thinking shifts no point in arguing over it. I even suggested a rooster collar if that happened ... nope he won’t have that either. The axe, nope no killing the boys... sigh, sigh, sigh. I am trying to get him open to raising his own meat, again he is not ready, I’ve had to dispatch birds for dinner when I was a kid, so I know I coukd do it. Sadly I just got to watch everyone’s experiments right now, till I can move to a different zoning and that will not be for a while... work and pay off this place first. Then sell and move.

 

[yellowherb]

I'm debating on meat birds. I don't think I can do it yet... It's still hard at times to cull ones who need culling. My daughter works at TSC and would bring home the weak and sickly chicks from chick days because TSC has a no cull policy and my daughter thought it was cruel to allow the chicks to suffer and die (mostly of starvation and dehydration). I fixed a few of them and now have a Cornish X running around the yard. She's a hen thankfully. She's run with various other fixer upper chicks and learned to free range. So she's a pretty healthy Cornish X at this stage, we are around the 8lb+ mark I think. I keep thinking that it's a shame she is so healthy and me not working on meat birds. I have ideas for meat birds but unfortunately I do not have a rooster of the type I would like to use. Crazy though, Thunder Thighs is doing so good! Heat index of 103 and tempts in the mid 90's and she does not seem to find it near the burden of the feather footed breeds I keep. Ok, she does spend part of the day under the deck in the shade

I loaded up one of my incubators with some color project sultan eggs and tried to put my left over eggs in the fridge but couldn't find room at the time. I should have enough food cleared out to maybe get them in the fridge tomorrow. It makes me wish my barred cochin was currently topping the hens so I could auto sex at hatch, but he's not