The experiment begins! How many eggs can you save from a single hen.

[Delmar]

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While I do admit to shining the brightest possible light on the subject, It is true that the eggs that were 7-14 days old, did exactly as well, percentage wise, as the eggs that were less than 7 days old! I believe that is a pretty impressive stat!

 

[MobyQuail]

14 days gives lots of options, only thing we should do next time is weigh the eggs, at lay, at setting, at lockdown, to see the difference in weight via evaporative loss...

again, nice work and thanks!

 

[Delmar]

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What action would you take if one egg has lost more weight, aside from documenting which one that is? Not set an egg that lost too much weight? How would I know how much is too much?

I think next time, after I build a bigger bator, I am going to try the method that rebelcowboysnb told us about and see what happens if I collect for an entire month!



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[MobyQuail]

from the dry incubation method...

"An egg must lose approximately 11% to 14% of its weight during the incubation cycle. That is, it has to have some evaporation of the contents of the egg itself in order for the chick to have room inside of the egg to develop and still have room to turn in the egg so it can spin around and pip the shell."

we know, too little evaporation during incubation is a negative, too much evaporation during incubation is a negative.

thinking freely from the above, I kinda think of it like a chemical reaction, there must actually be so much fluid for the different stages of the chemical reaction to complete. If too much fluid has evaporated before incubation, the reaction may fail at any stage.

e.g., trying to keep 14 days worth of eggs in Arizona during the summer may not work if the first egg laid lost too much fluid waiting for the last egg to be set.

I wonder about heat treating eggs also. going back to read up on that.

All things being sterile, I think that refrigerating them may work, maybe not too cold...would think they lose less fluid mass over time when refrigerated.

I would be trying to keep all eggs as close to about the same % fluid mass whether it be the oldest or the newest...I notice the broody hens like to lay their clutches, down in the dirt, not too damp, not too dry.

we know that you had the turning down, any idea of the humidity in your basement during collection? it worked too.

we like data.​

 

[Delmar]

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Not really, other than it always seemed a little damp to me. Now that I think about it it does make sense that you would want them not to lose any moisture before the hatch, so that they are all starting at the same moisture level. Seems like if you saved them for very long in a really dry climate you might want to keep them in some sort of humidor.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

One place I read was wrapping all the eggs in plastic to keep moisture in for storage.. Aint tried it yet cause I set every 7 days now.

 

[Gypsy07]

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Yup, unless you store your eggs somewhere quite humid, the older ones will lose weight between being laid and being set. The eggs that I stored for more than two weeks went from 46g to 43g during their time being stored. The oldest one didn't hatch but the two next-oldest ones did. If I recall correctly, the Texas A&M guide to incubating recommends storing eggs at about 70% humidity. It also mentions storing them in ziploc baggies to prevent moisture loss, and I'd imagine you could probably wrap them in cling-film as well.

Your hatching results don't surprise me at all - they're pretty much the same as my own results with old eggs. I actually found that my older eggs had a BETTER hatch rate than my fresher ones. Just goes to show you can't always trust the standard advice that is given out on here. I'm kinda wary of ALL advice and 'facts' until I've tested them out for myself.

Congrats on your hatch!

 

[Delmar]

Don't stored eggs need oxygen?

 

[FireTigeris]

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I would think so- some- what if you opened it every day exchange all the air and put a little water in the bag?

 

[1muttsfan]

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What's this "we" stuff?