Short incubation before storage Increases Hatch Rates.

[rotagen]

Very interesting article - researches showed better hatchability and better chicks when eggs were pre-incubated for short periods before storage. If I get to the point where I mail any fertile eggs, or even decide to store my own for any period I will certainly do this. Makes sense biologically, more cells and some enzyme activity makes them tougher.

Pre-incubation had no effect on the length of incubation period, hatching window, but it increased the hatchability of the set and apparently fertilized eggs and decreased the number of eggs not hatched, and also improved chicks quality.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29762735/

Packing eggs.......BTW - the ONLY mail-order hatching eggs that I got good results with were packed into a standard carton then DOUBLE wrapped with the BIG bubble wrap (taped over carton). The individually-wrapped ones, even the ones in the egg-shaped foam inserts, fared terribly and gave poor or zero hatch rates. Basic physics, larger mass is harder to smash around, and the humidity will stay decent with eggs near each other.

Anywayan

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

Interesting! Looks like there are quite a few articles on that topic. Never heard of this before. I'll have to check them out. Thank you for sharing.

Shipped eggs. Always tricky. After 3 years and easily 250+ shipped eggs here's my opinion. I'm not convinced preincubating will help them at all. But it would be a very worthy eggs-periment to take on. What has a huge impact on shipped eggs is the breeder's flock (age, feed, genetics, freshness of eggs), PO route/handling (distance between locations and weather). After these then shipping packing comes into play but it won't save you if one of the other 3 areas or your own incubation method isn't up to snuff.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If I get to the point where I mail any fertile eggs, or even decide to store my own for any period I will certainly do this.

I trust you will do some test hatches on your own before you mail any to convince yourself this is real and that your pre-incubation procedures work.

 

[rotagen]

Of course I will hatch them myself first...I can't wait ! Good idea to test this myself but I read the whole paper and the controls/experimental design were good so the results were clear-cut.

I agree somewhat with the other reply, but I gotta say that packaging is more important than weather. You gotta assume (and you would be correct) that the twits at USPS will try to crush the eggs. Putting them in a carton double-wrapped with BIG bubble wrap is the way to go for both physics and insulation from temps reasons.

Being on the receiving end I know this from lots of experience and heartache. Having said that, from my experience and listening to others, many fleabay eggs are not great and often not fertile to begin with. If you start with good eggs they are way tougher than you think.

For example: I bought some 1-2 day incubated eggs (getting back to the article) from a local breeder. We musta talked for 45 minutes while walking around the farm and me holding the eggs, then a 20 minute drive home. I did the dry hatch thing based on her recommendation (zero water until lockdown), and it is VERY hot and dry where I live. She had the hatch date wrong and 90% of them hatched 2 days before lockdown in the slow-turning incubator. A few others I sorta gave up on a couple days later, wondering how far she got the date wrong then kept changing my mind, so they had 2 periods both greater than 24 hrs sitting at room temp. Candled them ...I said what the heck and started up the lock-down bator again, and they all hatched about 8 hours later. 14 eggs and all but one hatched.

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

Curiosity and searching for better answers is always a good thing when incubating. Happy hatching!

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

My post above was not saying packaging isn't important. It is. However it needs to be seen as piece of the puzzle. Also consider hatching is greatly multifactorial and difficult or impossible to separate. For example a seller who takes great care in how they package/ship their eggs probably cares for their flock in similar meticulous fashion. The best packed eggs hand couriered to your door is not going to help you if the originating flock has fertility or genetic issues

 

[Kiraeh]

This is fascinating. I know there's a brief window in early development when the embryo can go back into a dormant state, but 4hr at such a low temperature is just barely turning it on. Wonder how they came up with those parameters vs others.