Preparing eggs before the hatch

[Nmarine1057]

I was unaware I was supposed to do anything special to my eggs before I put them in my incubator, so they have been sitting in an egg carton for about 5 days now in a room thats about 70 degrees and they haven't been turned until about an our ago (I just flipped them over in the carton) am I at a loss here?

 

[kevs-chickadees]

By flipped them over do you mean pointed side up now? You should always keep the pointed side down, just tilt the egg like at a 30 degree slant in the carton itself.

 

[Nmarine1057]

Oh man yeah i flipped them all the way over ill put them back on the pointy side hope i didnt mess them up

 

[kevs-chickadees]

You still have a good chance and I'd say put them in the incubator now. If you don't have an auto turner most people mark one side of the egg( lets say left side) with an X and the other side with an O, then come up with some schedule to tilt them from X being at an up angle to O. I think it's recommended to turn at least 3 times a day.

 

[Nmarine1057]

Ok i was trying to wait for a full dozen but i can always add them tomorow if my girls both lay ill go put them in thaks for your help

 

[Gypsy07]

When you're storing eggs, it's not so important to turn them for the first week. If you're going to be storing them for more than a week you should turn them once a day. Turn, as in tilt from side to side if they're in an egg carton. I suppose if they were lying on their sides you'd roll them over, but I'm guessing that not many people store their eggs that way!

Temperature-wise, again, if you're storing them for less than a week it's not so important, but the best temp for them to be kept at is around 50-55F. There's also a certain humidity that's best for them (to stop them losing or gaining moisture) but I can't remember exactly what it is. If you're interested in storing eggs, have a look at this link, it's got loads of useful advice about it: gallus.tamu.edu/library/extpublications/b6092.pdf

It's not an all-or nothing thing though. Storing them correctly doesn't guarantee you great hatches and storing them incorrectly won't automatically ruin them all. It's more just a set of guidelines that help you to maximise your chances of getting a good result. Your eggs will probably be okay if you wanted to wait a few more days to get a full dozen. Just think a bit about keeping them somewhere a bit cooler and turning them once a day. It's also a good idea to mark the date on the shell when you collect each egg, that way you can tell how well the older ones hatch compared with the newer ones, and can help you decide how long is a sensible amount of time to store your eggs for before your hatch rate is badly affected.

I've followed the storage guidelines very carefully and had good hatches from eggs that were over 3 weeks old.

 

[Nmarine1057]

Quote:
Thanks for the advice very helpful! This morning my incubator was at 105 F should i be worried if I just put the eggs in last night?

 

[Gypsy07]

Yikes! That could be bad or it could be harmless, depending on how long the temp was sitting there. What you need to remember when worrying about temp spikes and variations is that the air temp inside the bator is not the same as the internal temp of the egg. If your temp spikes up to 105 for a few minutes, even half an hour, your eggs will most likely come to no harm, as it would take a while for the inside of the egg (and therefore the embryo) to reach the same temp. But if your temp rose to 105 and stayed there for more than a few hours, your eggs would almost certainly all be killed. When you first put eggs in, they can take up to a day to reach 99.5 inside, so I'd guess if you just put yours in yesterday they're probably okay. Do you ahve any idea how/why the temp managed to get so high though? And how long it was there for?

I have an old home made styro bator that I use in emergencies, and the way the thermostat in it works, the lightbulbs come on at 95F and only go off again at 106F! But when I stick a thermometer probe in a water balloon set up to mimic an egg, the internal temp only varies between 99 and 100, which is perfectly acceptable...

 

[Nmarine1057]

Quote:
This is reassuring!! They were only in there for about 4 or 5 hours before I noticed, so I hope they are ok! Not sure why temp got that high but I kicked it down immediately, water ballon how does that work and can you post pictures for me please I have a digital meat thermometer that i could use for it!!!

 

[Gypsy07]

This here is a kid's toy called a water wiggler, available on Amazon for a couple of dollars, quid, whatever. They're CHEAP!:

You probably can't see from the picture but it's got a kind of tube bit down the middle of it that you can stick a probe into:

The idea is to put the wiggler in the bator, to mimic an egg. The thermometer will give you the temperature at the middle of your 'egg' which is a much more accurate way of checking temperatures than measuring the air temp in your bator. Like I say, my air temp can cause panics by swinging from 95 to 106. But by using the wiggler and probe, I know not to freak out cause my 'egg' is only going from 99-100.

The way I set mine up, the wire comes out of the bator and the display sits outside, so I can check on the temp without opening the bator (mine's so cheap and home-made it doesn't even have a window!) But if you can see into your bator, you could have the display bit sitting inside if you wanted...

Hope that info helps you a bit. And it sounds like your eggs will be just fine