wild easterns laying! Yee Haw!

[wanda047]

Two of my wild eastern hens started laying yesterday.. got two more eggs today. however... they insist on laying them in the mud even though I put fresh hay in their pen yesterday. There is an old dog house in their pen and I also put fresh hay in it, hoping that one of the hens would choose to use it for her nest. Surprisingly... I found an egg in it today. the second egg though was laying at the edge of the pen and was covered in mud.

Now my question... will the wet, muddy eggs still hatch if I wash them and put them in the incubator? I've always been under the impression that eggs would not hatch if gotten wet, but wondered if this was really true. after all.. in the wild, I'm sure the wild turkey's eggs do get wet???

 

[wilds of pa]

They may hatch if it didn't plug up the pores in the egg shell to bad and or bacteria didn't get into the eggs.. there is a coating on the egg turkeys put on when laying the egg to help protect them to a point

turkeys normally nest on ground that may get exposed to rain fall, but if they lay in low laying areas or mud, water to long or it blocks the pores up they more than likely will not hatch..

Ive seen eggs stained with leave dye and still hatch, which this comes from turkeys covering up there nest with leaves and rain comes and allows the coloring from the leaves to actually dye the eggs or stain them.. a lot of turkey nest can be lost in spring in low laying areas do to heavy rains and nest being flooded out, this is usually found in inexperienced hens

 

[wanda047]

Thanks for your reply. Until the rains stop, it looks like I'm going to have a time trying to get dry eggs. All the dry hay I put in their pen is already wet and muddy again. I covered the pen with a heavy duty tarp yesterday and I am going to try to again put dry hay in it. I'd really like to hatch some eggs out. It seems my young hens aim for the muddiest spots to lay their eggs.