Why no washing/disinfecting eggs?

[Katy]

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I'm seriously not trying to be argumentative, but some of your points just make no sense to me.

Unless you have hens that each lay in their individual nests so that their eggs have no access to each other or gather them one at a time those eggs are going to have more than likely been touching quite a bit already and had the opportunity to pass whatever bacteria is on them to each other before they ever reach an incubator.

Sorry but maybe I'll put more stock in what you say when you come back in several years after you've hatched out hundreds of chicks and give us your own findings on how your hatches turned out.

I don't understand what more you can argue, even if what you say is true the results don't lie! Cleaning/disinfecting eggs clearly has a better effect on the hatch rate than not. That is just the evidence, I don't understand how people can be so challenging when they have so little proof and a mountain of proof from the opposing is given to you! The eggs may be infected with bacteria and what not, but the question here is if washing/disinfecting eggs increases the hatch rate and it clearly and obviously does. You can't be so stubborn, and you can't always be right.

LOL...I'm hardly always right.

My evidence for continuing to do it my way is in my own hatches. I have good hatches and I don't wash my eggs. Each to their own on how they chose to do it and that is what I've said several times in this thread.

 

[debilorrah]

Good grief.

Katy does her way (and I do too) and you do it your way!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

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I always wash and disinfect my hatching eggs for the very reasons that have been presented in this thread. I did the research then came to my own conclusions.

Please allow others to do the same. Their eggs, their box, their business.

 

[Muggsmagee]

I'm going to go into this knowing full well it won't settle the debate, however, I am going to set 20 eggs tonight. I will wash/disinfect half of them, and leave the other half as they came from the nest boxes and pen floors with bloom and poo streaks intact.

(They are clean.)

I will set the disinfected eggs apart from the unwashed eggs in the same bator. I will work with gloves on the washed eggs.

My girls JUST barely started laying again...well a few anyway. None of the "possible" fertile eggs are older than 7 days, and NONE of my flock is over 9 months old.

I will try to split them evenly between washed/unwashed....going in the bator are Showgirl/Silkie eggs, White Orpington eggs and Ameraucana/JG, Ameraucana/Langshan eggs.

I cleaned and disinfected my incubator with bleach and water. I intend to do the peroxide method (of which I've never attempted, but will go into this hatch with complete integrity) to wash the eggs.

I must say...I want EVERY SINGLE one of these to hatch. I can sure use them and/or sell them. I have nothing to gain by compromising the hatch.

The bator hasn't stabilized temp, so I need to wait a bit before they are set to go in. I have a styrofoam bator (LG) I bought at TSC with an auto turner.

I must remind everyone, my hatch rate on my own eggs this summer was 90% and better UNWASHED. I shipped in eggs (2 separate batches) in the fall and had a 5 to 10% hatch rate...of which were also UNWASHED. It very well may have been my fault...or just working with a cheapo bator. I have not hatched since.

What do we need to know for this "very small scale" study? Temp/humidity level, candling results on days...? Is everyone going to have a problem with both unwashed and washed eggs going into the same bator? I will wear sterile latex gloves everytime I handle the washed eggs. Anything else? Feel free to add your input. I can't wait to see how this plays out. One problem I foresee is I'm not sure of my fertility rate yet...but we'll know when we candle at day 4.

Looking forward to hearing from you all. Updates to come.

ETA: I am not understanding the peroxide method of disinfecting eggs (really I couldn't find one), so this round I will wash them in hot water with dish soap like Sundown Waterfowl mentioned in an earlier post.

 

[BlacksheepCardigans]

You and I are setting together - I have 31 new Silkie eggs sitting in a brand-new never-used Brinsea Eco right this second; I set them an hour ago. I also have 8 BLRWs and 2 seramas heading into lockdown on Monday in another Brinsea Eco that was sterilized before they were set (they were not washed - I started this thread after I set them). There are no dirty/stained eggs in either one; the BLRWs were pristine to start with (and 8 of 9 made it this far) and the seramas selected themselves out of existence - the stained eggs died half-way. I'm down to the last two of ten, which were clean from the beginning. In my new set I washed some silkie eggs and left others unwashed; the unwashed are not touching the washed ones.

My experience is going to be nothing but anecdotal, because shipped eggs are going to be risky, but I'll update the thread when it's done.

 

[Muggsmagee]

Did you label washed/unwashed to keep track? Or is it this half of the bator vs the other? I look forward to seeing how this turns out. We are both facing numerous variables where in a perfect world these tests would not be conclusive on their own. My brain is science/fact oriented.

The studies you listed are fine for the field they represent (commercial hatcheries). However, like Katy, I do have my reservations knowing those studies don't run the gamut of variables, such as the long term affect on the hatched chick, the use/purpose of washing eggs on backyard flocks. I've read washing/disinfecting eggs in hatcheries is to prevent disease from spreading in the egg, to the chick, to the hen, to the flock, and then shipped across the globe. They are preventing a pandemic, basically. I'm okay with that. What I'm struggling with, is in a healthy (non-cramped) clean backyard flock, to what is the purpose of washing hatching eggs? And as I've covered before, the studies I've allowed the time to read have stated the egg is contaminated at point of lay...when it is still wet. The eggs' SHELL doesn't act as a good barrier for protection, but the cuticle (bloom) does. And that the membrane itself acts as a barrier. Washed, not washed, if the egg is contaminated it still poses a risk to the other eggs, right? If salmonella is the issue...that starts from the hen...correct? That salmonella is in the egg before the egg dries if it is present in the mom?

This debate is like watching NASCAR....the cars always turn left and yet the destination is the same.

( I'm sorry I'm not a fan of NASCAR, for those of you that are.

) If washing/not washing consistently works better for us...that is perfectly fine to continue using our own methods. I personally like a less tampered approach. That's okay. If I am to experience a consistent lousy hatch because of that, that is completely my fault. I would want to change that.

Good luck with your hatch, and keep us posted.

I want everyone to reread this from one of the last studies you posted. Where it says CUTICLE, that is another word for BLOOM. I think we can all agree it is not perfect at preventing disease, but neither is washing. That's where I feel hatchery equipment vs. backyard flock bators come into play. I would love to have the equipment/facilities of a hatchery and see what differences the hatches would bring. But to dream...

I recopied from my previous post...it bears to be repeated. This is where I enjoy science. Finding the absolute truth! Or at least the attempts.

http://japr.fass.org/cgi/reprint/8/4/499.pdf ...This is a study created by the USDA FOR researchers and HATCHERY managers (aka commercial hatcheries). I did read where it mentioned "When an egg is laid, it is warmer than the environment, since the body temperature of the hen is 42°C. The warm egg cools to environmental temperature, and this cooling causes the contents of the egg to contract. Such contraction tends to form a negative pressure within the egg. Bacteria present in the environment or on the egg surface can then be pulled into and through the eggshell and its membranes." This pertains to every chicken.
"found that eggs are penetrated almost immediately when challenged with moist Salmonella-contaminated chicken feces"...so this clearly states the poo has to be infected w/ Salmonella, aka the chicken herself.
"In a field survey, Smeltzer et al. found that eggs laid on the dirty chicken house floor were more likely to exhibit internal bacterial contamination than were eggs laid in a nest box [8]. Eggs are most vulnerable to bacterial penetration in the first 30 to 60 sec after lay before the cuticle hardens and effectively caps the pores".

In this same article it talks about the eggs defense against bacterial invasion..."PHYSICAL DEFENSES The outermost physical defense that a bacterial cell encounters on an egg is the cuticle. The cuticle is a very effective barrier to water and carbon black particles [MI. Despite the fact that the cuticle allows gas passage, it seems to effectively fill the pores of the eggshell [Z]. However, this defense is not perfect. A small percentage of eggs are laid without cuticle; these eggs may easily be contaminated by water and carbon black [MI. Even when cuticle is present, for the first few minutes after lay it is an ineffective barrier to bacterial invasion until it hardens [19]. Nevertheless, the hardened cuticle is the major barrier to liquid and therefore is of utmost importance in bacterial exclusion. "
"Bains details the chain of Salmonella from breeder feed to the nest box, the hatchery, onto the grow-out farm, and to dressed carcasses. Broiler hatcheries have been shown to be reservoirs for Salmonella. In one study71%
of eggshell fragment samples were contaminated. In another study involving six commercial breeder hatcheries, 15.2% of the eggshell fragments were contaminated with salmonellae."

 

[Muggsmagee]

Just a quick update.

I set 19 eggs (instead of 20) on 12/20/10. 1 of the eggs had a long thin crack in it, so I pitched it. 10 eggs were washed, the other 9 were unwashed.

So far, so good. I'll candle in 2 more days (Christmas eve) and let you know how they are progressing. If anything, I am hoping they are at least fertile to begin with!

After all, these are the first eggs I've gotten from my breeding pens.

UPDATE 12/28/10

We candled the eggs on Christmas Eve. 6 of the unwashed eggs appeared to be fertile and 8 of the washed eggs appeared to be fertile. There were a couple of eggs where we couldn't tell if they had veins or we were imagining it. We will candle again on day 10...December 30th.

UPDATE 12/31/10

We candled our eggs again tonight. Only 4 of the washed eggs were fertile, and only 4 of the unwashed eggs were fertile. We have had NOT ONE bloodring in either of the washed/unwashed eggs. The brown eggs were nice and thick and a little difficult to see into at day 4, but it was obvious tonight they had no development. Again, all of these eggs came from our own flock.

UPDATE 1/7/11

Eggs went into lockdown last night 1/6/11. We candled them and all are still going strong. The "race" is perfectly split down the middle....On the WASHED side is 1 White Orp and 3 white Silkie/Showgirl, and on the UNwashed side is 1 White Orp and 3 White Silkie/Showgirl. WO's came from the same pen, Silkie/Showgirl eggs came from the same pen. Can't wait to see how this plays out!

Hatch should be in 3 days.

Update 1/11/10

5 out of the 8 chicks hatched.

Only 1 washed egg hatched...a Silke/Showgirl. The other 3 washed eggs (1 White Orp, 2 Silkie/Showgirls), the chicks died in the eggs at a late stage...day 19 or even later (one had peirced the inner membrane, but no more progress than that).

All 4 of the unwashed eggs hatched. 1 White Orp, 3 Silkie/Showgirls. The original White Orp was born w/ guts outside of the body, so we had to cull it.

That was hard. It was the first one to pip and zip...

I will say that for my own experiment, working with a cheapo bator and my own flock's fertile eggs, I PERSONALLY will not wash my eggs again. If I was getting 90% hatch on my own eggs before without washing them, I don't need to mess with what works.

Edited to add hatch results.

 

[Muggsmagee]

Blacksheep...how's your hatch coming along? I'm updating my previous post.

 

[Muggsmagee]

4 out of 8 eggs are pipping and zipping today. 1 of those (White Silkie/Showgirl) is a Washed egg. 3 of them (2 Silkie/Showgirls and 1 White Orp) are Unwashed.

How's your hatch coming Blacksheep?

 

[Katy]

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Interesting.........