Moldy Shells

[auxarcian]

Help! A few of my incubating eggs are growing fungus on their shells. Perhaps dirty farmer hands were the culprit, perhaps dirty laying environ, perhaps storage to incubating temp too quick. Doesn't matter.
Question is: can the embryos be saved? And how? Please suggest your ideas.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I have never had that happen. I have limited hatching experience, but wanted you to know that mold can be fatal to chickens. So if it were me I'd take the chance and clean out the incubator with something strong like very diluted bleach and lightly go over the shells too and then rinse everything well.

But unfortunately I don't know what the effect on the embyros would be from the cleaning. It may be fatal to clean eggs with a diluted bleach solution for all I know. But I wouldn't stand by and let that mold happen.

I hope you can find a way to clean everything and still have a good hatch!

 

[auxarcian]

I took your advice, which was also my instinct. I made a bleachy bath, followed by clean water rinse, followed by a pat dry with a clean towel.
As I did this, I realized the fungus was more like mud that had spread and powder-coated the egg.
I only washed the four eggs that were strange and left the other eggs and the incubator be.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I took your advice, which was also my instinct. I made a bleachy bath, followed by clean water rinse, followed by a pat dry with a clean towel.
As I did this, I realized the fungus was more like mud that had spread and powder-coated the egg.
I only washed the four eggs that were strange and left the other eggs and the incubator be.

Hoping for an excellent hatch for you!!

 

[auxarcian]

All is well. Lovely hatch. The four eggs that received the bleachy bath were just fine. One of them did develop a hairline fracture. I followed BYC advice and dripped birthday candle wax along the crack. The hatchling pipped beautifully and came out strong and robust.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

All is well. Lovely hatch. The four eggs that received the bleachy bath were just fine. One of them did develop a hairline fracture. I followed BYC advice and dripped birthday candle wax along the crack. The hatchling pipped beautifully and came out strong and robust.

Oh congratulations on your new babies!