Wiping down dark color BCM eggs mid hatch

[Titantherooster]

I posted this in another thread but thought it deserved its own in case others had insight:

I am mid hatch with some of my own stock of BCM and just candled and the air cells don’t look like they have lost much. I didn’t weigh at the start. Humidity has been in the 20% range most of the time. I had considered “washing” or wiping the eggs down with a warm damp cloth to take the brown pigment off and help expedite the evaporation process…have any experience with that? I am hatching these along with some other lighter brown Bielefelder eggs so if I washed them I’m not sure if the other unwashed eggs could risk any kind of contamination?

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you remove the brown pigment you remove the bloom. The bloom is a coating the hen puts on as the egg is being laid that helps keep bacteria out of the egg. It is really effective at keeping bacteria out as long as it is intact.

Removing the bloom does not guarantee that bacteria will get in the egg, multiply, give you a stinky rotten egg, and ruin your hatch. It does increase the chances that could happen. Personally I would never remove the bloom, I really hate rotten eggs.

I don't know what is going on if you are incubating at 20% humidity and the eggs are not losing much moisture. That just doesn't make sense. They are your eggs and you can do as you wish but I would not remove the bloom.

 

[MountainWoman73]

Just stumbled across this. I know it's old.

BCM eggs really do lose less moisture. I am hatching 8 BCM eggs and the air cells on some of them are really tiny. I also incubated at about 20-25%. There seems to be a strong correlation between darker/thicker shells that are hard to see through and the tiny air cells. The 3 easiest eggs to see through all have normal looking air cells. It seems to cause problems with positioning and hatching, especially with rounder eggs. The chicks literally don't know which end is up. I just checked my incubator early on day 20, and sure enough, G on the left with one of the smallest air cells has pipped wrong end.

For anyone not familiar - pipping wrong end means the chick was unable to internally pip. So you consider a wrong-end pip to be the "internal" pip for timing purposes, and give it at least 48 hours (instead of 24) before any intervention. They more often need help though.

I also don't recommend wiping off bloom. (!) But I am curious if other hatchers have tricks to help increase air cell size or help chicks with smaller air cells get positioned.