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I know you don't like studies, but yes, late mortality is strongly associated with older eggs and dryer eggs. If the chick can't position to pip internally, if it's too dry, if it's too old, if it got rotated inside the shell - there are many reasons that shipped eggs have a very high mortality rate when they try to transition from embryo to chick.
Hmmm...I have had an eager interest in reading through this thread. I don't recall Katy saying she doesn't like studies. Just ones that are biased [loosely quoted]...to the benefit of the hatchery. Chicks can die in later stages from too much humidity, bacteria, cold, hot, etc, etc, etc. Shipped eggs are a gamble. Incubating is a gamble. No doubt. I had a Jersey Giant egg I almost tossed where
2/3 of the egg was air cell on day 17....this was a shipped batch. Last minute I put it back in the bator because I was inexperienced at the time. What was 4 more days to wait? The JG hatched no problem. Google dry hatches. People do those all the time with great success.
Now, my question to you is...why are you saying your results mean NOTHING? If you had 6 out of 12 eggs hatch that were unwashed, and 6 out of 6 eggs hatch that were washed. It means something...at least for you. If washing works for you...continue doing so. And if I get better results NOT washing my eggs, I will also continue to do so.
There is something to take from scientific experiments for the benefit of hatcheries...we can learn a bit from everyone if we need to. But it leaves something to be desired when eggs taken from a poo covered, crowded hatchery chicken coop is compared to a washed/disinfected egg and those resulting hatches. It all goes back to my very first post on this thread...hatchery experiments/hatching is not apples to apples w/ the backyard flock owner/hatcher. We raise our chickens differently, have different (lower quality usually) incubators...there are so many variables!
Maybe this is where we should send a letter to Mythbusters!