There is nothing better than a good debate.
Sorry this is newsy...my brain goes on tangents. (This article pertains to eating eggs...but is fun to peruse.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/1977-11-01/Fresh-Eggs.aspx )
I am all for science, comparative studies, research, etc., etc. The key to this debate is we are not "quite" comparing apples to apples...even when we are discussing hatching chicken eggs.
The hatcheries have expensive, high quality equipment and MUST maintain a higher level of preventative care due to the astronomical amount of chicks they hatch daily, compared to Mom and Pop Smith who (like myself) have your run of the mill styrofoam incubators. If the hatchery did not disinfect and wash their eggs they could have some serious problems on their hands, and potentially kill hundreds of thousands of chicks through contamination (that is HUGE money!)...AND their massive incubators do not come apart readily to be sanitized. Anyone who has personally seen these hatcheries (or footage) knows the cramped environment in which their breeders are kept. The hatcheries have to abide by Federal regulations and deal within that structure because they breed on such a mass scale they can also breed diseases and the like on a mass scale! (There is the exception of small scale breeders...but they usually have higher end incubators, too. So let's strictly compare commercial to home hatching.)
I can only go from my personal experience...yes I have had bloodrings in my hatching eggs, and yes I refuse to wash my eggs. My understanding is you can not rule out every other possibility of termination and base the findings of a bloodring solely on bacteria permeating the unwashed/nondisinfected shell. There are just too many factors...the parents could be old, the egg could be old, the subpar quality of the incubator plays a huge role in incubation, yes it could be a bacterial thing, and yes it could be bad timing on the mating. (My ADD just kicked in...my doctor just told me about a study...over half of human pregnancies end in miscarraige in the first month and most times it goes undetected. Why can't something similar happen in the chicken egg?) The hatcheries have fancy gadgetry, bells and whistles, humidity control, or single stage incubation, self regulating temperatures....they tend to have better control over their environment vs the backyard breeder/hatcher. Their feeding, egg collection, sets for hatching are all down to a science. It has to be.
It can not be ignored that because chickens have become domesticated livestock, and through the last century given hormones, antibiotics, and lord knows what else along with over breeding, we have slowly weeded out their natural defenses to certain bacterias and diseases. I am finding a lot of backyard chicken owners are not medicating their chickens just to make their flock stronger and more resistant to the plethora of contaminants (in the form of diseases) they fall prey to. Chickens are susceptible to everything it seems. We have crow, barn swallow and sparrow issues here. Our flock could get something from a bird flying overhead and transmit disease to the egg through wild bird poo that falls in their runs. You never know.
For those of us that try to hatch with incubators, of course it is not the equivalent to the natural environment of a hen doing it herself, we try to simulate what the hen does naturally. That's risky in itself. I have 2 styrofoam incubators. They are a nightmare to work with. Regulating the temperature can be tricky, keeping the bator humid is tricky, rotating the eggs, not opening the hatch too many times, keeping the room free from drafts, there are so many variables of human mistakes that can take place when hatching at home. I've had one bator spike to 108 degrees, and the other drop to room temp of 72 degrees for no apparent reason. I lack the bells and whistles of an expensive model.
Blacksheep, you mentioned junglefowl don't live in a 4 x 4 box and can hatch their eggs in a bacteria free "virgin" earth. (Loosely quoted.) You can not possibly stand by that. The earth (in this case topsoil, forest litter and the like) is FILLED with bacteria, parasites, and scat/poo/fecal matter, etc. There is beneficial bacteria and there is harmful bacteria. Did you know birds in the wild poop where they are? Even if that means near or on their nest? Have you seen a wildbird nest before babies have been hatched? The nests can be littered with excrement. Not always, but can. The chicken waste and egg come from two different tubes in the chicken, but exit out the same vent. If a chicken can hatch a chick from an egg with a little poo/debris on it, so can we. The bloom is a protective barrier...that is a fact. Is it going to prevent every harmful thing from entering into the fertilized egg? Of course not.
If the hatcheries were working in an apples to apples environment such as ours, or at the very least a study was conducted in a conclusive, controlled way...same hatching eggs (1/2 washed and disinfected the other 1/2 left w/ bloom and smears), same equipment, same environment, etc. Then we could draw a better conclusion.
The point in all of this is... YES, you CAN wash/disinfect your eggs before you hatch. AND YES, you CAN forego washing off the bloom and take that egg from the nest box to the incubator. I take to hatching eggs in a less intrusive way...I don't need to tamper with my eggs. It just isn't necessary. I have had over 90% hatch rate with my own eggs this summer, and less than 10% with shipped eggs most recently. But I have to deal with my cheapo bators. We can't impose our views onto others as if they SHOULD or SHOULD NOT wash/disinfect their hatching eggs. It clearly works both ways. Everyone can find their preference. That's okay.
If I get the
Brinsea 190 Cabinet incubator I want for Christmas...I'd be happy to test this all out! Sounds like a fun study.
