Some shipped eggs were broken and they soaked the other eggs. Any hope for wet eggs??

[Tula]

I ordered eggs off ebay because I couldn't find the ones I wanted locally. They arrived today. They were shipped/packaged well, however all the eggs were individually wrapped in paper towels, and put back in the egg carton. One carton is perfect. The other carton had 5 broken eggs. The problem is, the eggs that busted leaked all over the non-broken eggs in the carton and they were soaked from the cracked eggs. I wiped them off with a dry paper towel and put them in a clean carton to rest before going in the incubator. I know your not supposed to wash eggs and it concerns me they were wet for I don't know how long. (Shipped on Wednesday, arrived Saturday). Should I consider the eggs that got wet ruined? It was a carton of 18 eggs, so it was basically 13 eggs wrapped in egg goo paper towels Anyone ever have this happen and come out successful??

 

[cochins1088]

There are many debates on whether or not to wash hatching eggs.

I did some experiments and I found that washing the eggs didn't affect the hatch rate. In fact, I got a 100% hatch rate on one of the batches of washed eggs.

I even tried washing a broody hen's eggs and all but one of them hatched.

So, in my opinion, washing the eggs will NOT negatively affect them.

Also, if your eggs were covered in egg content, I would not incubate them unless you wash them. They will harbor bacteria.

 

[Bitterroot]

I'm new to hatching birds, but a friend of mine who has been hatching and hand-rearing peregrines for longer than I've been alive always washes/disinfects his eggs and has a near perfect hatch rate. I washed all the eggs in my first batch (and by wash, I mean I dunked them under and gently used my fingers to rub down the shell removing any dirty spots), and so far so good.

I used F10, if anyone is curious, as that's what he recommended.

 

[dretd]

There are many debates on whether or not to wash hatching eggs.

There certainly are! I am interested in learning more about your experiments. What technique did you use to wash the eggs? I have been on threads where the eggs were dirty and instead of disinfecting the eggs the recommendation was to throw them out. Really? How do you know they wont hatch unless you set them? But don't say that unless you want to be flamed!

ALL commercial hatcheries wash/disinfect their eggs prior to placing in their incubators.

Brinsea's recommendations: http://www.brinsea.com/customerservice/eggclean.html

Link to a study for using hydrogen peroxide: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1906612

Tula let us know what you decide to do and keep us posted on the hatch!

 

[cochins1088]

I simply ran them under hot water and scrubbed the dirt/poop off. I washed half of the eggs and left the other half unwashed. Both had the same hatch rate. I then ran a couple batches of all washed eggs and had great hatch rates.

I didn't do any in depth experiments, I was just testing it out. Now when I collect eggs to incubate, I wash the dirty ones and leave the clean ones alone.

I have also had chicks hatch out of dirty eggs, but if the eggs are covered in egg content, then they need to be washed.

 

[dretd]

That's good to know cochins1088! Many recommend to wash in temps warmer than the egg temp. Do you recall the water temp relative to the egg temp that you used?

 

[Tula]

I might end up washing those eggs and not washing the others that didn't get egg on them. I thought about the fact they will probably smell horrible later after being in the incubator unwashed. I'll probably just wash them with water and nothing else. Glad to here that there is hope! lol

 

[Tula]

We'll the eggs started hatching on Friday night/Early Saturday. I have a few in the incubator still, but I don't think they are going to hatch. When I was candling, I didn't see any difference between the washed eggs and the non-washed eggs, but I haven't been able to get a final look to see what hasn't hatched. I do have a question though. My last two hatched, I've had to "help" a few eggs, when I do this, it seems like they have a 50% chance of making it... the chicks that I have to help end up with this weird dry, but wet looking hard crust on them. It's almost like they were really wet in the egg, and then had a liquid harden up on them, which leaves them all nasty/matted looking. It's weird because this only happens to a few chicks out of all of them. Both chicks that had it happen the worse, out of the last two batches, have died. Anyone know what this is?? Also, it looks like the eggs that looked good air cell wise are the ones that aren't hatched yet. I'm guessing there is about 6 or so in the incubator that haven't hatched, that I really though were looking good before lockdown. I don't know. My stupid gauges went crazy right at lockdown and my readings didn't seem right (on multiple gauges). Anyone know what causes the wet looking, yet hard to the touch chicks?? I'm thinking the humidity might have went way too high... one gauge read 30%-50% humidity the other read 79 -99%....it was a disaster!

 

[steelchair]

Sounds like the membrane dried on them. If you open the incubator when some eggs are pipped you could "shrink wrap" them from the drop in humidity. This could be why you have to help them.

 

[Tula]

Thanks. I've tried to research it and I can't tell if I got shrink wrapped or sticky chicks....I've rigged up all kinds of contraptions to add water without opening. I've got a plastic tube with a syringe on the end so I can add water and I use another tube/syringe to wet additional sponges/lids without opening. I do have a problem watching the chicks struggle, but I won't help until at least 24 hours of pipping, and only then if they look like they are drying out (and as long as there aren't others in the process of hatching). I just float tested/candled the remaining eggs, and they are all bad. They looked globs floating around when I candled, so maybe I just did a crappy job candling before or maybe something went wrong shortly after day 18ish. I guess I had a good run though, because I ordered 36 eggs, five were broken, leaving 31. In the end, I ended up with 17 that hatched/attempted to hatch. One didn't make it out of the shell before it died (I was going to help it, but it got turned over in collection of eggs and I didn't see it anymore because the pipped side was laying down - I thought it must of hatched on it's own, but turns out, if just rolled over and the chick never made it out. I "helped" 3. Two made it fine, just not so fluffy and the other one was weak and died today ... so as of right now, 15 chicks, about 50% hatch rate for all shipped eggs, so I guess that's good Oh and to answer the question about washing eggs... there appears only ONE of the washed eggs didn't hatch... so it actually seems like they did better!