Cleaning eggs

Margie · **Posted:** Tue Aug 26, 2008 2:26 pm

I was recently browsing an American chicken site that said they disinfect their eggs before incubating. I've never done that, in fact, I tho't that the shells were very porous and would absorb anything moist and thus risk the developing embryo. Does anyone have any ideas, hints or first hand knowledge about this practice?
Cheers!
Margie

bunyanuternie · **Joined:** Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:31 pm **Posts:** 2903

I had actually started a topic similar to this once , but I have a system now :lol:

, I eat the dirty ones , and store the clean ones , till they go in the bator , and have given the cleaning idea away

Margie · **Posted:** Tue Aug 26, 2008 7:16 pm

Sounds similar to what I do - altho' I eat the dirty ones AND the knobbly ones. I have a hen that rarely misses laying an egg a day but they are all sandpapery and bumpy - :lol:

brings tears to your eyes just thinking how she actually lays them :shock:

Shock, horror.... and an egg a day mounts up pretty quick.
That site where I read about sanitising your eggs for hatching is:
http://shilala.homestead.com/whatsnew.html You may be interested!!!??
Cheers!
Margie :-D

debbieo4914 · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:49 am

Hi Margie - I just wipe mine gently with a cloth dampened with plain cold water. If it is cold it is less likely to be absorbed by the egg.

I only clean the ones that I take to a hatchery as they won't accept dirty eggs.

Regards,
Deb :-D

Margie · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:16 pm

Wow Deb! I didn't know that there was such a service. So you just take all the eggs that you want to incubate, pass them over to the hatchery and 3 weeks later you roll up and take delivery of the chicks??? Is that right?

I've never heard of that B 4...this is a bit off topic, sorry. Wonder how much that costs.
About the cleaning tho' - I have wiped eggs over with a damp cloth before but didn't have that much experience to know whether that was decreasing the viability or not. My guess is that viability would be even more compromised by having dirty eggs in the bator tho'.
I had heard also that you can rub dirty eggs over gently with a dry Scotch Brite but I found that it still wasn't getting them clean so better to have nice clean nesting material and check nests often.

Thanks for your replies.
Margie

greenaus · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:38 pm

Margie wrote:

That site where I read about sanitising your eggs for hatching is:
http://shilala.homestead.com/whatsnew.html

My opinions on what they wrote is very ...ummm... opinionated. I'll give you the "sanitised" version. ;-)

I reckon that the stuff they're doing to their eggs is perhaps leading to the need to throw out eggs that go bad in the incubator.

So far... knock on wood ... I've not had any eggs go bad in my incubator. But...in fairness to those who have, it's not like I've incubated hundreds of eggs (yet).

I don't...
...clean eggs with disinfectant
...spray the eggs with disinfectant
...turn the eggs (much, if at all) during the pre-incubation storage period
...usually incubate eggs beyond ten days old (there are five in the incubator now that were from 11-13 days old when they went in, but only because I didn't want them going to waste)
...often get eggs that need cleaning, other than a quick brush with my hand if wood shavings stick when they were still freshly (wet) laid.
...even turn them as often as I'm supposed to (this time. I'm kind of experimenting with the lazy approach).

Margie · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:02 pm

So Greenaus, what would you generally use to clean out the 'bator between "hatch-batches" - just warm soapy water or % disinfectant? I guess when U think about it, a hen sitting on eggs is not exactly germ-free, hey?
What sort of hatch rate do you consider normal? I've only hatched 4 lots so far. First lot I put 18 eggs in and 16 hatched, but one died. The 2 eggs that didn't hatch, I investigated and they had not started to form so I imagine that means infertile.
Each successive hatch, I learn heaps more and I get a real buzz out of the whole process.
Thanks for your comments.
:lol:

Margie

greenaus · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:34 pm

18 eggs in, 2 infertile, 16 hatched. That's a 100% success rate for your incubator...depending on whether the one that died was in some way caused by the incubator.

Cleaning my incubator:
I hatched batches of eggs with overlaps in incubation time so there was no time to clean.
Then, when I decided to stop a few months back, I pulled it apart and sprayed it with Home Brand Domestic Cleaner (generic version of Domestos) and cleaned it out. I let it sun dry and then packed it up.

I put it back together in early July..I think...set a couple of small batches, then a dozen and soon after it went to Chad and Lori's at Toowoomba.

When Chad finished hatching out the eggs, he washed it or sprayed it with some kind of disinfectant..I don't know what, but it smelt nice enough. ;-)

I'm hoping the disinfectant residue won't have any effect on the eggs I've put in there. I didn't put it out in the sun to air out or anything.

A hen isn't germ free, but I think they can sometimes tell when an egg needs to be discarded. Also, they don't hatch out a batch, leave all bits of afterbirth stuff laying around and then sit on another lot in the same nest.

I guess success may depend on WHAT types of nasties are present, no matter what the situation.

As long as things don't get too messy or smelly, I'm expecting to hatch eggs weekly for some time now without cleaning...that would disrupt the eggs still due.

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