Timing of incubation and should dirty eggs be washed?

[LtDanFan]

sooo. Despite me saying “I’m at capacity” and being done with brooding, i was offered 10 fertilized eggs and although i tried to say no, my BF (enabler that he is) was there and was no help, said i would do it anyway so i may as well and refused to help me out and just say no…problem is that i am leaving to go out of the country the 9th of Oct and will be gone until the 24th. Hence i wanted him to say no but he didn’t so here we are… He will not know what to do and i dont want them hatching out until i get back if possible. How long can/should i let them sit before incubating and still have a good hatch rate? Im sure he will rise to the occasion if need be. He won’t admit it but he likes raising and taking care of youngins as long as they aren’t hooman. I feel the same.

When i do start to incubate them, should i wash them first? Some have poop on them and some have yolk from a broken egg in the nest on them.

Related side note since i only have 10 eggs and my incubator holds more than that, i was thinking of throwing in some of my own eggs but my rooster is only about 6 months old. I’ve seen him (awkwardly) mount and try to mount hens, but when would i expect him to be fertile? I dont want to incubate clearly non fertilized eggs. Also how long do they have to “do it” before fertilization happens?

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi,

I personally wish my hubby would do what yours did. I'm the one who just tells him I just have to hatch more, more, more.

Eggs over two weeks old start losing their viability exponentially. That said, I've hatched some older than two weeks and some that were in the fridge. I'd guess hatch rate for those was a little above 50%.

I wouldn't wash them. If there are chunks you can pick off, try pick them off. I hatched some horribly dirty duck eggs and managed to get a few of those to hatch. If it bothers you, you could pick that stuff off, then sterilize them. I did that and documented it in this article I wrote.

It's unknown if your new rooster is doing his job yet or not, but the only way you'd know is to crack open a couple and look for the bullseye on the yolk. Or, just set them anyway and in 7 days candle them.

 

[LtDanFan]

Hi,

I personally wish my hubby would do what yours did. I'm the one who just tells him I just have to hatch more, more, more.

Eggs over two weeks old start losing their viability exponentially. That said, I've hatched some older than two weeks and some that were in the fridge. I'd guess hatch rate for those was a little above 50%.

I wouldn't wash them. If there are chunks you can pick off, try pick them off. I hatched some horribly dirty duck eggs and managed to get a few of those to hatch. If it bothers you, you could pick that stuff off, then sterilize them. I did that and documented it in this article I wrote.

It's unknown if your new rooster is doing his job yet or not, but the only way you'd know is to crack open a couple and look for the bullseye on the yolk. Or, just set them anyway and in 7 days candle them.

I guess i should clarify that his statement was “you will do it anyway so you as well go ahead” and when i told him i had no such intention, he laughed. But i would not have done it anyway in this case knowing the timing. And it would have been a lot easier to just order sexed chicks come spring time lol. But it is what it is, so here we are.
The eggs are really poop-ey and some are covered in yolk and poop.
I can try to candle them tomorrow but i guess i won’t know if they are viable until about 5-7 days and by then they will be a week in and hatching before i return.
I will read your article and see what i can do. As nervous as i am incubating eggs, i am even more so doing it while in a different place and out of the country.

 

[BDutch]

When i do start to incubate them, should i wash them first? Some have poop on them and some have yolk from a broken egg in the nest on them.

No! Don’t wash the eggs.
You can try to get the poop of with a piece of cloth. I wouldn’t lay the poop eggs and yolk eggs in the incubator. And I wouldn’t do this in oktober either. How many are dirty? 50% outcome? You want to be sure there are a few siblings if you start. Adding you own eggs isn’t a bad idea if you can provide everything the chicks need until spring.

Personally I would eat these eggs and raise chicks in spring from eggs from your own cockerel. Raising chicks in spring is much easier.

 

[Debbie292d]

50% outcome?

I said I've hatched them over two weeks old, and some from the refrigerator, and I guessed the hatch rate for them was a little over 50%.

When you hatch over 500 silkies per year, you know when you're not going to get a good batch, and that was one of those times.

 

[Debbie292d]

I guess i should clarify that his statement was “you will do it anyway so you as well go ahead” and when i told him i had no such intention, he laughed. But i would not have done it anyway in this case knowing the timing. And it would have been a lot easier to just order sexed chicks come spring time lol. But it is what it is, so here we are.
The eggs are really poop-ey and some are covered in yolk and poop.
I can try to candle them tomorrow but i guess i won’t know if they are viable until about 5-7 days and by then they will be a week in and hatching before i return.
I will read your article and see what i can do. As nervous as i am incubating eggs, i am even more so doing it while in a different place and out of the country.

If you have an automatic humidifier with a large receptacle of distilled water and an automatic turner, you could be away for three weeks, until hatch day, if you wanted. Most of us like to candle at least at the 7-day mark, though, to remove any non-starters or unfertilized, especially with shipped eggs, as the rate of non-viable is higher. I can say that in all these years of hatching literally thousands of eggs, I've never had one explode or break while incubating. I think that's a huge rarity.

One of my three Brinsea Ovation 64 EX's is the one with the app, and in that case, I have no idea if wifi where you're going works like wifi here, but I was out of state and could check on the eggs. I have adult children I would have called should I have noticed anything awry, but nothing ever was.