so a few of my hens are still laying this winter, and of the few ive been using, all have so far been fertile. so i thought id throw on the incubator and hatch out so birds for the beginning january. But, unknown to me my OH has moved all the eggs id been collecting and has been putting them in the fridge......i only noticed today will this effect the fertility of the eggs ? they've been in there for about 5 days - 7 days
They probably aren't fertile anymore. When the eggs drop below a certain temperature, they're no longer viable. I think the temp limit is 50* but if I'm wrong, someone will chime in and let us know. Sorry.
When I lost almost my whole flock to a family of foxes last summer, including my roo, I threw everything I had in the fridge for eating into the bator in a desperate attempt to repopulate my flock. Some of the eggs had been refrigerated for almost two weeks. I think I got something like a 60% hatch rate, which is certainly not ideal, but they definitely weren't all infertile.
I sent duck hatching eggs to a friend and it got very cold nights here I thought she was gonna have a HORRABLE hatch rate. (it got low 20's) and her hatch rate was 90% (one died when hatching though) then again. This is ducks. You should try
I had my roo spend the day in the fridge as an egg. I'v also had a dozen eggs spend the day in the garbage can outside, 8 were not cracked and all hatched. (Long story)
I put eggs I had bought under a broody this year and added 3 of my refrigerated eggs that were at least 2 weeks old. I marked them and one hatched. I have the pullet now. It's always worth a try.
Its worth a shot for sure,, goodluck! Ive never tried with chicken eggs but Ive hatched out alot of refrigerated quail eggs and once I even separated out each tray on the turner so that each one was from a different week all the way up to 6 weeks, there was no noticeable difference until the 6 week olds and even then I got about 85% hatch rate on those. Im sure quail are different though, my last hatch I lost 3 quail out of 120. Ive never had as much success with chickens but Im new to them.
