What is everyone using to store eggs before incubating

[joebryant]

Quote:
Ridgerunner, just so I know for sure, are you saying that I was supposed to have been turning the eggs occasionally while I was saving them for the incubator?
I've never heard of that on this forum, and that possibly explains why some of my eggs did not hatch if I'm reading what you said correctly.

 

[WalkingWolf]

I have been having excellent hatches both at home and shipped. I store my eggs in the bottom of the fridge in the produce bins. The temp in these bins stay at 45F. Our family used to be in the dairy business when I was young and we sold eggs too with milk and other products. If I remember correctly 45F was the temp the eggs were kept at in the egg cooler.

A wine cooler would have probably the perfect temp but the racks would not work. It is probably the route I will go when I start having a large number of eggs. It is true that a hen lays a egg a day and then starts setting around 10. But for chickens raising chicks for laying is a social event even jungle fowl. In the wild they have a clutch in a couple days.

I think when it boils down to it that cooler is probably better than warmer storage. At one point I set eggs I had in the fridge for a couple weeks when I only had 2 hens. I had a perfect hatch with those first eggs.

 

[ma hen]

wow 45 and for a couple of weeks that is news to me i love this site i am learning a lot i am new to hatching but i do now some things but adding things day by day, my hatch rate is going great, i have 11 chicks number 12 in a day or two .i have to candle the eggs i put down 9 days ago i do not do well at day 4 so i wait. opps have to go to work eveyone have a great day

ma hen

 

[WalkingWolf]

Quote:
I would prefer to keep them at 50F but 45 is as high as I can get the temp in the bins. Once I get over 2 dozen a day I will have to invest in a wine cooler. Also note that I let my eggs rest for 24 hours at room temp before setting them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
Ridgerunner, just so I know for sure, are you saying that I was supposed to have been turning the eggs occasionally while I was saving them for the incubator?
I've never heard of that on this forum, and that possibly explains why some of my eggs did not hatch if I'm reading what you said correctly.

If you check the link I gave, it explains it. I haven't read it for a while, but you can go at least a week without turning the eggs and do fine. And turning the eggs does not necessarily mean turning them over. It means rocking them from side to side.

I've seen you on this forum quite a bit. I'm surprised you haven't seen the posts about turning the eggs. Khayward's post in this thread mentions it. I guess it is something that just never caught your eye. Happens to me a lot. But check out that Texas A&M link. You'll get questions answered you did not know you had.

 

[Barbara9642]

Well thank you. That is what I couldn't figure, the hen doesn't have a refrigerator! It suprised me that it didn't say I could keep them on the counter. I am in the south, nothing is cool down here. It will bee 97 degrees on Saturday. I am thinking, silly as this is, the actual coolest place in my house is my bedroom. I could always put them on my dresser! Won't hubby love that? I am hoping to eventually start hatching my own, but we are not there yet. I have some fertilzied orphingtons, but no broody. I would stop my whole get an incubator campaign if I could get a broody, but in the few years I have been doing this I have never gotten one. Probably something else I am doing wrong, but now that I found you guys its looking better for my birds!

 

[Katy]

I just store mine in a carton on the kitchen cabinet with a note attached that says "hatching eggs....DON"T EAT"!! I have great hatches from my own eggs.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

Quote:
I do the same Katy.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
Ridgerunner, just so I know for sure, are you saying that I was supposed to have been turning the eggs occasionally while I was saving them for the incubator?
I've never heard of that on this forum, and that possibly explains why some of my eggs did not hatch if I'm reading what you said correctly.

If you check the link I gave, it explains it. I haven't read it for a while, but you can go at least a week without turning the eggs and do fine. And turning the eggs does not necessarily mean turning them over. It means rocking them from side to side.

I've seen you on this forum quite a bit. I'm surprised you haven't seen the posts about turning the eggs. Khayward's post in this thread mentions it. I guess it is something that just never caught your eye. Happens to me a lot. But check out that Texas A&M link. You'll get questions answered you did not know you had.


Thanks, you're right. I just now did. Wish that I'd read it a long time ago.
"... Eggs stored for more than 10 days should
be tilted from side to side over a 90-degree
angle once or twice a day to assure optimal
hatching success rates. To turn eggs during
the holding period, place a 6-inch block
under one end of the carton (or flat) holding
the eggs to produce a 45-degree angle against
the floor. The next day, remove the block and
place it under the opposite end of the carton.
Turning eggs prevents some hatchability loss
that can occur during long-term storage."

 

[Chicks_N_Horses]

I just put them all in this wrought iron basket on my kitchen bar. It looks really nice and fitting with eggs in a pretty bowl. Some get picked up and eaten but I usually have far more than I incubate anyways.

When I recieve shipped eggs.....they don't go in the basket! LOL I lay them out on a towel on my counter and I give everyone fair warning - "you touch, you die" -