Where and how long can you keep fertile eggs?

[vigario]

Want to sell some of my fertile French Copper Maran eggs. Where do I keep them while I wait to collect enough (i.e. counter top, cool dark place, etc.) and how long can I keep them before they are no good?

Also, I have 20 hens and three roosters. Is that a good enough ratio? If I sell them as fertile eggs how do I know if they are actually fertile?

Thanks a ton!!

Mark

 

[Alexander]

You can keep them up to 10-15 days before incubating them.Keep them in a place with shade and room temperature.Turning them once or twice a day would be good too.

About fertility if the weather is good you have many chances of having fertile eggs.You could also crack one and see for yourself if you want to be 100% sure.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think this article gives pretty good details on what to do to store them. Don't get too bent out of shape about a lot of this stuff. Just do the best you can, but if you are going to sell them as hatching eggs, you probably should be a bit more careful than I am due to ethics.

Texas A&M Incubation site
http://gallus.tamu.edu/library/extpublications/b6092.pdf

I store them in a reasonably cool place. i don't think dark or light matters. So I don't have to worry about turning them, I take the turner out of my incubator, plug it in and store them in it.

I'll give you another link for the fertility. It has pictures of the bull's eye so you know what you are looking at. If you crack a few and most are fertile, then most that you don't crack are probably fertile.

Fertile Egg Photos
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16008&p=6

There are a lot of myths and misunderstandings about roosters and fertility on this forum, but with three roosters and 20 hens, if you give the roosters access, I'd expect all eggs to be fertile.

 

[RareBreedFancier]

If you are selling them consider post time as well, you want them going out as fresh as possible but posting on Mondays and Tuesdays is ideal so they don't get stuck somewhere over the weekend adding to the days since they've been laid.

If I was me I'd want to put them in the post no older than 3 or 4 days, best success is with eggs set less than 7 days old and shipping is likely to add at least two days. I don't set eggs older than 7 days so I would feel bad posting off eggs I know I wouldn't set myself.

 

[cmom]

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