question about cleaning eggs

[chickmomma03]

Yea, but if I crack it open it renders it useless for hatching. So I guess I would just have to take my chances with tossing some in an incubator and candle them after about a week then?

 

[Jesusfreak101]

I wash the with soap and water right before i use them other wise i just throw them in the fridge and if they are dirty when they come in they get runned under water and wiped thats it

 

[LI chickie]

I don't wash my eggs, I store them on the counter and I wash (rinse) before I use them. My chicks do not poop in the nest boxes and the eggs are clean.

 

[Blooie]

Yea, but if I crack it open it renders it useless for hatching. So I guess I would just have to take my chances with tossing some in an incubator and candle them after about a week then?

Unfortunately that is the case. And equally frustrating is when you crack open an egg, find it fertile, and assume that all of the eggs must also be fertile. Um, not always. So you could crack, say, three eggs, find them all fertile, and still end up putting infertile eggs in the bator or under a broody. Grrrrrr

So most folks do just what you mentioned - incubating for several days then checking by candling and discarding clears.

 

[pdirt]

Cracking a couple is really it for telling if they are fertile or not. Egg yolks have a little white dot on them. If the dot is a "bullseye" then it's fertile. If it's just a dot, infertile. There are some good pictures on here showing fertile vs infertile eggs. I'll see if I can't find a couple of links - somebody quicker than I am might find that info first, which is just fine too.

Right, yes, the "bullseye"...I forgot to mention that important detail. It's pretty distinctive, at least in my experience.

http://www.fresheggsdaily.com/2015/02/are-my-chicken-eggs-fertile.html
or
https://www.google.com/search?q=fer...ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIyuLzmev2xwIVTDGICh25dAp-

Yea, but if I crack it open it renders it useless for hatching. So I guess I would just have to take my chances with tossing some in an incubator and candle them after about a week then?

If you have the time to watch the mating patterns of your roo(s) and hens, you will have a pretty good idea. Just because you see a roo and hen mate doesn't mean the eggs will be fertile, but it is a pretty good chance! If you have more than one roo, then it will be a crapshoot as to who the father is, unless you keep the roos and hens separate from each other.

 

[Blooie]

Thank you for posting the links, Pdirt!

 

[chickmomma03]

Quote: I have some time to watch, I'm out there periodically through the day, and can see them through the window at any given point. I only have 1 rooster (a buff orpington) so any fertile eggs are going to be either pure buff (one buff hen) or buff mix (cochin, sex link, leghorn, EE). I know I'd like to hatch at least a few, my harder part is going to probably be telling the cochin, sex link, and buff eggs from each other unless I catch them in the act of laying because all of those are suppose to be a brown egg I'm pretty sure.

 

[drewskimac]

You really don't want to just "run them under water". If you are going to wash your eggs then it needs to be done in as hot of water as you can handle contacting and rub them, air dry them briefly, dry with a paper towel, then put them in the fridge.

 

[pdirt]

Quote:

I have some time to watch, I'm out there periodically through the day, and can see them through the window at any given point. I only have 1 rooster (a buff orpington) so any fertile eggs are going to be either pure buff (one buff hen) or buff mix (cochin, sex link, leghorn, EE). I know I'd like to hatch at least a few, my harder part is going to probably be telling the cochin, sex link, and buff eggs from each other unless I catch them in the act of laying because all of those are suppose to be a brown egg I'm pretty sure.

With time, you'll probably get better at telling eggs apart. It's much easier amongst different breeds than within the same breed. Slight variations in color (slight different tones of brown), size and sometimes even shape. One of our brown egg layers lays more torpedo shaped eggs (on average) and another lays rounder/squattier shaped ones. Sometimes it is truly hard to tell, but I have been surprised how much we can tell the eggs apart.

Search on the forums here...someone has posted a way to mark eggs by painting a dab of gel-based food coloring near the hen's vent. When she lays the next day, a bit of the food coloring smears onto the egg. I haven't tried it yet as we are not hatching this year, but sounds interesting!

 

[chickmomma03]

Quote: I ran the few I've gotten under hot (I rarely use cold water for anything, other than watering animals). I don't buy/use paper towels, only cloth.