Successful experiment!!

[cmobley]

Several months back I bred my Easter egger rooster to my black maran and my heritage reds. The first part of the experiment was to see if older refrigerator eggs would hatch or not well 23 out of 24 eggs hatched one wasn't fertile so that worked and the eggs were from a day old to 3 weeks old! So I hatched my little mutts then decided to try the wing feather test to see what's a roo or a hen I banded all the roosters and maybe it was luck but I got all that right. Well I had to many birds so I have them all away except one maran ee hen mix and one red ee hen mix. The red mix actually turned out to be a white hen. In the hopes of getting an olive egger today I finally got the first egg from my maran ee hen and it's indeed an olive egg!!! My red ee hen hasn't laid I don't think if she has it was a dark brown maran looking egg but I don't think that was hers I'll keep y'all posted!!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

So are you saying you refrigerated eggs and then we're able to hatch them? I always though that once they got as cold as a refrigerator that they would no longer hatch.

Nice eggs.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

So are you saying you refrigerated eggs and then we're able to hatch them? I always though that once they got as cold as a refrigerator that they would no longer hatch.

Nice eggs.

The trader joes eggs people hatch are refrigerated....

Gary

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I have read about it but not sure if I believe it or not, so was wondering. The temperature of the refrigerator could be a factor as well. Interesting.

 

[cmobley]

My fridge is a samsung and set to 34. The eggs stay in the door in the egg section up top. I dunno if that has any effect or not. But yeah all of them hatched and none acted weird or got sick they're still all healthy birds.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Well, myth debunked I guess.

 

[lazy gardener]

I believe there is info in the Hatching Eggs 101 article about viability of eggs down to very close to freezing.

 

[yellowherb]

My neighbor gave me a flat of eggs that were nearly frozen. Some actually were frozen with cracked shells! I discarded those and set the others. I ended up with 9 chicks hatch but what made me curious was that only 1 was a rooster. I wondered if the hen eggs could survive near freezing temps better than the rooster eggs. Just one of those things that makes you go Hmmm..

I was thinking of doing a frozen egg experiment after I'm finished with current egg torture experiments but gotta wait for my new flock to start laying first.

 

[cmobley]

I did notice out of the 23 eggs hatched only 6 were roosters. I dunno if the cold did anything or that's just how it ended up. I'm starting a new set soon I'm already gathering eggs and have my incubator getting ready.

 

[lazy gardener]

I believe that if you do a google search, you will find a study that correlates with chilled eggs resulting in increased percentage of pullets. But the over all hatch rate is decreased because the male embryo is not as strong, so does not develop.