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Quitters poll

What do you do with your quitters

  • Throw in trash unopened

    Votes: 5 38.5%
  • Open, examine, trash

    Votes: 4 30.8%
  • Open, examine, compost

    Votes: 4 30.8%
  • Feed to flock

    Votes: 1 7.7%
  • other- explain

    Votes: 2 15.4%

  • Total voters
    13
Earlier quitters, non starters, etc.. I have boiled or scrambled and fed back to the flock (or other animals like dogs, pigs, etc). Makes zero sense to toss them to me. So my vote was feed the flock.. but as an avid adventurer, is there any I haven't tried?! Okay yes, while I have fed broken eggs out raw, I have not fed incubated eggs back raw.. for whatever reason, I just haven't considered it.

Later quitters or DIS or FTT chicks.. I have sent to a snake home, trashed, and composted. But feeding out (in a timely manner and in the right composition/preparation) is as good of option as any.. also presuming bacterial growth is not the (suspected) cause of death. One condition I am also definitely talking about is being from my own flock and would not feed back eggs or shells from an outside flock. I'll also note here though that when I volunteered at a wildlife rehab center they got bags full of frozen cockerel chicks from hatcheries.. depending on which animals were being fed is what determined if they were fed out whole or chunked (with scissors) into smaller pieces. That was the first time I saw yolk in a chicks belly.

I have also opened one.. that appeared to be a possible quitter only to have an eyeball looking at me and still moving from inside the scrambled egg pan. It was a slow developer and would not have been viable at the end of incubation anyways.. but still a bit horrifying.

Little side story about exploding eggs.. I've never had one in my bator YET but after one hatch was over, life circumstance unfolded and unhatched eggs were never discarded.. left to sit there and rot, more than a year later (maybe two) I came back and all were still intact. None had exploded and all were as light as air. No stink etc. and did NOT explode when finally discarded. The air (gas) exchange had already equalized in pressure.

On the other side, ones I had composted still whole.. and not as far out from the incubation period.. had so much gas built up in side.. they were fine just sitting there but when another egg rolled/bounced (kicked or tossed) into it.. would create a pop sound. Also noting that I'm using the term composting loosely in this instance and mean something more akin to throwing outside under a bush.. The rats, raccoon, opossum, etc maybe didn't find them in time to enjoy. Bet those smelt like death for a bit.

Please always use YOUR own best judgement, I cannot recommend anyone do what I do or claim it to be "safe". :oops: Still I hope you're as entertained by this story as I was by recalling some of the experiences!


Happy hatching! :wee
 

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