will my fertile egg from the fridge hatch?

[luckiestck1]

hi
I'm going to be starting my very first incubation soon and I have been storing my fertile
eggs in the refridgator and I was wondering what your thought on the subject are.
Fingers crossed that something will happen.

 

[ramirezframing]

I have a friend who has with lots of luck, she even hatched eggs off the counter that had been there almost a month with lots of luck. Just bring the eggs up to room temp first.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

So long as they have not actually frozen you should be fine. Most of the eggs I hatch are refrigerated first.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There are ideal conditions and the conditions we have to deal with. They are not always the same. The longer you store hatching eggs and the further from ideal conditions you store them, the greater chance something can go wrong. Do not read that to mean they won't hatch. It just means you should do the best you can.

The ideal conditions to store hatching eggs are somewhere around 55 degrees F. Different experts will give you different answers but it will be somewhere in that range. Many of us store them at room temperature and still get really good hatches. If you store them in the 80's they may start to develop some which can mess it up, but even that depends on how long they are stored in those temperatures.

Not all refrigerators are at the same temperatures and the temperature is not exactly the same everywhere in that refrigerator. The colder they are stored and the longer they are stored at those cold temperatures the less likely they are to hatch. But for some people the refrigerator may be a better place to store them than anywhere else available to them. As long as they have not frozen, you have a chance. If they have not been stored really cold for a long time, you have an even better chance, maybe even a real good chance.

I don't know all the details but my thoughts are that from what I know about your situation you should try it.

 

[aoxa]

There are ideal conditions and the conditions we have to deal with. They are not always the same. The longer you store hatching eggs and the further from ideal conditions you store them, the greater chance something can go wrong. Do not read that to mean they won't hatch. It just means you should do the best you can.
The ideal conditions to store hatching eggs are somewhere around 55 degrees F. Different experts will give you different answers but it will be somewhere in that range. Many of us store them at room temperature and still get really good hatches. If you store them in the 80's they may start to develop some which can mess it up, but even that depends on how long they are stored in those temperatures.
Not all refrigerators are at the same temperatures and the temperature is not exactly the same everywhere in that refrigerator. The colder they are stored and the longer they are stored at those cold temperatures the less likely they are to hatch. But for some people the refrigerator may be a better place to store them than anywhere else available to them. As long as they have not frozen, you have a chance. If they have not been stored really cold for a long time, you have an even better chance, maybe even a real good chance.
I don't know all the details but my thoughts are that from what I know about your situation you should try it.

You are always so detailed with your answers!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

My refrigerator stays around 35 degrees. I don't ordinarily let my chicken eggs go past two weeks of age before setting them. Up to three weeks for turkeys. I typically get better than a 90% hatch rate for chickens and 85% for turkeys. Refrigerating eggs isn't a death sentence for them. You'll likely get some decrease in hatchability relative to the 55 degree ideal, but I think you'd find it hard to distinguish the refrigerator losses from those caused for other reasons. The ideal in the case of storing hatching eggs is pretty flexible.

The turkey eggs that I have in my incubator right now I will be satisfied with if I achieve only a 50% successful hatch. The reason for this is that those eggs were gathered in July and August (hot and humid in Florida), the oldest of them were approaching four weeks of age (they're not laying much right now), and they were not stored in my refrigerator but rather at my normal summertime house temperatures of 76-84 degrees (the daily variation between night and day in my home). Which of the three major factors will cause the greatest difference in hatchability? I have no way to determine, but I know that all three can and likely will play a role in those that do not hatch.

If I'd had the space for them I'd have kept them refrigerated the whole time and would likely achieve better results, but I'm selling about twenty five dozen table eggs a week just now so space in the ice box is at a premium.

Do the best you can with your hatching egg storage. Some folks may have an area approaching the ideal somewhere in their home to store hatching eggs. Seeing as how it's August and hot as blazes in most of the country right now there won't be many. The rest of us will have to do the best we can, but that can still lead to a pretty good hatch. Refrigerate them if you need to. So long as they don't freeze then 35 degrees is a lot better than 75 degrees.

 

[Debbi]

I have Black Copper Marans, and this winter I found one lovely dark egg on the floor of the coop that was almost frozen solid. I needed one more egg to fill the incubator, so figured why not give it a try? I marked the egg as "COLD", and stuck it in with the rest. It was the second egg to hatch, with a very large, healthy chick!! Go figure...

 

[luckiestck1]

wow it hatched cool, thanks you for all the info everyone its helped.