My fridge eggs are developing! ( update - pip and chirping! ) PICS!!!

gocrow77

Crow's Nest
10 Years
May 13, 2009
1,174
10
163
Central MO
A few weeks ago right after I joined the BYC forum, I posted about getting 9 dozen farm eggs from our local farmers market for a buck a dozen. At the time I didn't even have a bator, but I was curious about incubating some chicks to hatch out. I was encouraged to wait and get some different eggs - who knew how old these might be or if they had been refridgerated etc - my hubby wasn't ready for me to start hatching. Well, I waited a few weeks did some research on breeds and contacted someone about sikie and a few "mixed" eggs. I got my bator (a LG) and got it up and running. Still had a few dozen of those farm eggs in the fridge. I just couldn't help myself! I put 4 eggs that had been in my fridge over 2 weeks at least and they are ALL developing. I can see an embryo at 5 days and veins - all look good like the candling pics I have seen. At the most I figured it would keep me from going crazy waiting for my silkie eggs to arrive ( thanks Katrinag ) and I could "pratice" candling on eggs that weren't so important. I'm kinda shocked still that they are growing in there, but I am having a total blast showing my 10 year old when we candle them where the baby is and how the veins are "feeding" the chick inside. Right now they are just little blobs. I still don't have great expectations about them developing all the way to hatch, but boy if they do......!! I can just think of the names : fridge, popcicle, etc. Just had to share my amazement. I have read and reread the thread about Joey the TJ baby, and figured mine were just in there way too long to ever do anything. I was pleasantly surprised!
ep.gif
 
Last edited:
I have heard of this before but I wasn't sure if it could really happen!
ep.gif
I am glad you tried it. Let us know how it goes. Happy hatching! I want to be incubating so bad but my DH kindly suggested I wait until after camping/boating season!
hu.gif
 
Thanks for the well wishes. I wish I could post candling pics, my camera is too crappy
hmm.png
I broke my hubby down by talking chickens, hatching, coops, and incubators for weeks. H efinally gave up and said "just do whatever you want you are going to anyway" , lol. He knows better, but since he said "yes" I took the plunge. I didn't really think they would develop after that long in my fridge!
th.gif
 
I have one pretty awful pic to share, but I think most people who "know" what they are looking at can tell its an embryo and some veining.

candlingfridgeeggs071.jpg
 
Well, my fridge eggs are big and brown - I'm guessing some combination or mix of the most common ones like buff orp, barred rock, RIR, sex links etc. I'm great with that as most of these I already have and they are some of my favorite birds. In a few days I will try candling again - hopefully I will see more progress and I will be able to get a better picture than this one. Thanks for asking! That was one of my hubbys objections to me setting these eggs -" You don't even know what is in that egg!" Well, I figure it's a chicken who's mother laid a brown egg so it will likely lay brown eggs as well. I have another eggs I got from that same farmers market that I set yesterday as well. It is fat on one end and pretty pointy on the other - almost like a childs toy top ( remember those? ) pretty sure it's a guinea egg. I have not yet met the supplier of these eggs -he/she brings in however many cartons of eggs for a friend to sell for them, drops the eggs off, and leaves - but I would love to tell them how interesting their eggs have made the last week or so for me, and if the guinea egg hatches along with these fridge eggs the next couple of weeks after that is gonna be ever more interesting! Makes me wonder if the egg got in that carton because the farmer just needed one more to complete the dozen and figured most people couldn't even tell the difference or if it was really an accident. Either way it's a fun surprize!

gguineaegg006.jpg
 
The frige is the Best place to store eggs that you are going to incubate . They need to be in the warmest part of the frige , i think they need to be above 40-42* degrees . It's best to put them in paper carton with small end down and put into large ziploc freezer bag , prop eggs up on one end/side and rotate each day .
I've seen eggs hatch when kept this way that were over a month old . Probably could stay good up to two months or more .

Any questions ?
Best of luck with hatching ,
Shannon
South Alabama
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom