*Incubating Eggs*
I received my incubator as a gift on Christmas 2015. I'd been moaning and groaning about wanting to incubate eggs and Santa gave-in and brought me a fantastic set up!
I received a Hova-Bator Genesis 1588 (http://incubatorwarehouse.com/hova-bator-genesis-1588-advanced-kit.html) with the egg turner.
The first batch was good but then came the second batch of hatchers...
At about Day 5, I started smelling an awkward smell from the incubator (which I didn't smell on the first hatch), so I asked Trapper about it.
He, being much more experienced than me,... said, "You're going to have to smell the eggs... open it up and take them out and actually smell them - with your nose. Some could have started developing and died and that's the smell you are smelling."
"Really?" I thought. I have to actually smell all these eggs?
But listening to good guidance... the next night I did just that. I also researched via google... "smelly eggs in incubator" and some pointed me to looking for leakage - which is why I have the flashlight out.
Seeing no leakages... I went with Trapper's idea - to start smelling them! On the surface this egg looks fine but when presented to my nose... I automatically knew - it was bad! Even getting past the "latex" smell of the glove I had on... I knew this was a bad egg. The others did not have a smell - at all.
The bad egg got doubled zip-lock bagged and sent outside to the trash.
I've often wondered why broody hens kick out eggs... I guess their instincts are faster than ours.
Rotten eggs in an incubator serve no good purpose. This is why broody hens will kick some out and as far away from the clutch as possible. Bacteria spreads and mother nature knows best.
After I wrote the above article; my next batch of eggs produced a "leaky" egg. Here are pictures of what a leaky egg looks like and this didn't happen until day 18.
We were hand turning this batch so that is the reason for the X's and O's in the pictures.
I removed it from the incubator, and placed it in a zip-loc bag for disposal. I didn't want it to contaminate the other eggs or potential hatches.
Vikis
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