You can't incubate and hatch eggs that have been bub the fridge can you?

[Trio]

It's at freezing here over night, so the eggs would get really cold once they have been laid. Would they still hatch?
I have just got my first half dozen eggs and can't come to terms with eating them. I keep wondering what the chick would look like. I don't have an incubator anyway. Or a broody hen. So my question is, what temp does an egg have to stay above to be viable?

 

[Toddrick]

All I know is that mine were in the fridge (40F) for four to five weeks--without turning--before I incubated them, and it worked out fine. So anything short of freezing probably has little negative effect, and actually I heard can prolong the viability of the eggs. I imagine if they freeze it would lower the viability.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

You don't want to hatch pullet eggs. Wait for the eggs to get normal size. Go ahead and eat them and enjoy them fresh.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you try to hatch every egg that gets laid (I assume you have a rooster) you are going to be flooded with chickens. If you can’t come to terms with eating them yourself, either sell them or find a food bank or some other way to give them away so they can be used. Many times a minister can help you find someone that can really use the eggs.

I personally do not like to leave the eggs in the coop overnight. That’s an invitation to predators plus it makes it more likely the eggs will get broken or really dirty.

How cold can an egg get and still be viable? That’s not an easy question to answer. It’s not that every egg is perfectly viable to a certain temperature and then all of a sudden at a certain temperature none of them are viable. The people that hatch maybe 1,000,000 chicks each week of the year have spent a lot of money to determine what egg storage conditions give them the best chance of success. Just a 1% change in hatch rate means more than 500,000 chicks a year for them. That starts to add up. They have determined certain temperatures, humidity, length of storage times, turning, and other conditions are more ideal than others. That does not mean that you have to have those ideal conditions for eggs to hatch, just that the more they stray from those ideal conditions, the less likely an egg is to hatch. Sometimes those eggs can be pretty tough.

You should not store eggs in a refrigerator unless that refrigerator is set at 55 degrees Fahrenheit. 55 is considered ideal. But many people do because it is their best option. Storing them at 90 degrees for any length of time would be worse. Different refrigerators are set at different temperatures and different locations I the refrigerator can have different temperatures and humidity. Eggs stored in a refrigerator can hatch. Eggs stored on a kitchen counter at 75 degrees can hatch, often with great hatch rates. The longer they are stored the more the hatchability drops but a lot of that depends on the conditions they are stored. Eggs can stay viable in pretty rough conditions and for fairly longer periods of time. They can also lose viability fairly quickly. A factor often not mentioned is cycling between warm and cool. The more they cycle between warm and cool the faster they lose viability.

It’s not a clear-cut answer but consider freezing a pretty good cut-off of when there is practically no hope of them hatching. The closer they get to freezing and the longer they are that cold the less chance there is that they will hatch. But someone is likely to say they had frozen eggs hatch at some point. There are no absolutes.

 

[Trio]

Golly gosh I won't try to incubate every egg, it's just the genetics that are making me wonder, like would this egg have a black polish rooster, or this one, a brown lacey hen? I guess I see them abit like an unopened present, what's inside! Yep we have a rooster, spike. He is a polish bantam. They are bantam eggs by the way, I brought the hens when someone was moving. They were laying but had stopped due to the move or winter, but now two are laying.
So if one of my silkie hens, when I get them, goes broody, I theoretically can pull the eggs out if the fridge and pop them under her? I'm guessing I should let the warm to ambient temperature first! I never knew that. I am totally amazed. I think I just assumed...
When I was a kid sometimes our chooks would disappear for a month, we'd figure a fox had got them, but then they would return with a string if chickens behind them. That was gorgeous.
But I will eat these eggs. If a recipe calls for 1 egg, how many bantam eggs should I use? Two do you think?
Oh this is the first time we have had chickens since we have had kids. I wanted my kids to have a similar upbringing to mine. I have a wonderful memory of going down to the chicken coop at night with my dad, squaring amongst the quietly clucking chickens and using a torch to see inside the egg. Dad would always be saying, but don't count your chickens before they hatch!

 

[Ridgerunner]

You might want to read this about storing eggs for incubation. In my opinion it goes way overboard in describing what the ideal conditions are but it’s a start. Don’t obsess about it. Just do the best you reasonably can.

Texas A&M Incubation site
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/...e-Cartwright-Incubating-and-hatching-eggs.pdf

Just because it is possible a refrigerated egg can possibly maybe hatch does not mean it’s the best option for storing eggs for incubation. The coolest room in your house out of direct sunlight and away from air vents is probably a much better choice. I prefer to give my eggs the best chance to hatch, not stretch the limits. The guidelines are there for the simple reason they give you the best chance of getting a good hatch. It’s all about odds. Some people are luckier than others.

It’s possible you could win big if you buy a lottery ticket, but that does not mean you should spend your entire paycheck on lottery tickets. You might get lucky, you probably won’t.