Shipping dirty hatching eggs

[Sparklee]

Egg yolk. Is it okay to ship eggs with egg yolk specks left on them after being wiped? Is that pretty standard among breeders here?

 

[Mahonri]

No that's NOT standard... and not cool either.
I would complain.
Unless of course the eggs broke in transit via the post office. Nothing the breeder can do about that.

 

[exop]

It's up to the individual... but I know a lot of people don't like to wash eggs hard before setting them, because you can get rid of the protein coating that the hen leaves on the outside of the eggshell... the coating helps keep bacteria out and helps keep the egg contents from drying up too quickly.

Are you talking about an egg that must have been laid in a nest where another egg had broken?

This sounds pretty innocent to me, if the other egg was fresh (ie, pleasant, normal smelling yolk) I don't think it's going to affect the incubation.

I prefer to wipe eggs down with a slightly moist washcloth if a wet hen tracked mud onto them... if an egg has something serious, like a turd stuck to it, I won't sell it as a hatching egg.

 

[Sparklee]

Quote:
Yes, the eggs with the yolk on them were from a nest or nests where eggs had broken. Thanks for input.

 

[cashdl]

It is not a big deal. I rarely get a broken egg in a nest because I am checking so often, but if an egg gets broken, you wipe as much as you can off of the other eggs immediately and set them aside for shipping. I absolutely never wash hatching eggs and will not buy from someone again if they wash their hatching eggs and ship them to me. On hatching eggs you can expect some soiling, dirt, blood, and feces. I take a dry sponge scrubber to all of my eggs before I ship them out, but I only lightly scrub off the loose stuff. Washing an egg can reduce its viability by removing the coating that helps keep bacteria out. The coating also helps keep the egg from drying out too quickly.

A breeder can reduce the dirtyness of the eggs by keeping clean nests, but it only goes so far. Here in Northern CA it has been raining since last fall and the ground is gross with mud. The girls will walk thru dirt or mud to get to their dry pen and when they lay the eggs in the nest sometime leave mud on the eggs.

Now seriously mud caked eggs is no excuse, because it is very easy to wipe off when you collect eggs. But a little bit of yolk is no big deal. It won't affect hatching, and shouldn't be a concern.

If someone want pristine sparkling eggs, they should not buy from me. LOL! I like there to be a little proof that I did not wash the eggs.

Lanae

 

[Sparklee]

Quote:
Thanks. It just wouldn't occur to me that it was okay to hatch yolky eggs as I imagined the yolk would be more apt to seal the porous egg than a few specks of poop would. It's more likely I could get the poop sanded off than the wet yolk off. Yolk is usally more liquid than the poop. Plus, now that I think about it, there's egg white all over the egg, too.

I guess, if I really want to know, I can re-confirm your findings next year. I'll break eggs over the top of eggs that I'm going to hatch. Let them sit for two hours. Wipe them off. And then see if my hatch rates are different from my usual rates.

The shipped eggs I got that had yolk on them didn't hatch, but it can't be attributed to that because shipping more likely did them in.

 

[cashdl]

HMMM!! I got from your original post that there was only a few specks of yolk on the eggs. Was there enough yolk to seal the eggs? I have hatched eggs from my own birds that were dropped in the water dish, I have found in the mud, horse poop, and so on. I don't ship those, but I have never found that any of that affected hatchability. Experimentation is good then you will be able to say for certainty what you know.

Lanae

 

[Sparklee]

Quote:
Sender said eggs had been in nest with a broken egg or eggs. The unbroken eggs were wiped off and sent to me. Yes, only a few specks of yolk remained after being wiped. I don't know if the broken egg was allowed to dry at all or if any sealing even could occur. Are you saying that, yes, the broken egg contents on the outside of an egg could seal up the pores in the egg making the egg unable to "breathe" (you know, air goes in as the moisture inside departs through pores, I don't know the technical term for that). It's not respiration is it?

 

[cashdl]

I honestly don't know. I wouldn't think so, but not sure. It will be a good experiment for you to try. I do know in my table egg pen when an egg gets broken, its contens rarely completely cover any other eggs. I have bedding in there and it absorbs most of the yolk. Some will get on the eggs next to it, but never will they be completely coated.


Lanae

 

[McSpin]

I've had several shipments of hatching eggs that I've received with broken eggs. Egg yolk was all over many. Each time I'd wash them under water because I thought that dried-on egg yolk would not be good. They've hatched out at the same percentages that I'd normally get. At first it surprised me since I've read many times that they probably wouldn't hatch if egg yolk got on them and that eggs shouldn't be washed. However, many things I've read have turned out to be bogus, so it now longer surprises me when things turn out differently.

I've also experimented with not "turning" my hatching eggs while collecting more (before they go into the incubator). I've never noticed a difference in hatch rate on these either.