What to feed my chickens, dry incubating/hatching, and more listener questions answered

From hobby chickens to homesteading chickens, we all have questions.  In this episode we discuss feeding chickens to dry hatching and more!  

Hatching Marans

Dry hatching

washing hatching eggs

Exploding eggs

Chick Electrolytes

Hatching Upright

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Transcript

Carey 0:00

I don't know anything about pigeons, but two pigeons showed up two years ago in the cow barn, and now we have, David said there's 17 now. Making a really big mess over there. They're blue. I don't know if that matters. Or they found your place and they're like- Heck yeah this lady feeds every day. There's no cleanup day here. If we hang out and don't get in a whole lot of trouble, she'll let us stay. Yeah. When they start covering the entire house, then we'll have to eradicate some pigeons. That's a You have to cull some. I have to cull some. Yeah, we'll have squab for dinner. Isn't that what s- what pigeon is,

0:38

Welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast, where breeders, backyard keepers, and patch fanatics come together to talk everything poultry. Subscribe and follow so you never miss an episode. Now, here are your hosts, Jennifer Bryan and Carey Blackmon

Carey 0:53

Jennifer, this listener question thing is taking off. It has. We do get a lot of questions. I don't think people realize how many we get. We've been getting more and more since we started answering one of them at the beginning of a podcast. So today we're gonna do a... We're gonna have to do a whole podcast on listener questions just so we don't get really far behind. We also do emails to assess feed tags. Did you get the email I sent you yesterday? Yes. So I forwarded it to you so you could answer him. So on the website we have a page just for feed tags, and you can send them to Carey and he will give you his opinion of them. And I, I'll be honest because sometimes people send them to me and the feed is atrocious, and sometimes it just needs a little something. Every once in a while I get feed and I'm like, y- you might could improve on that a tad, but it's really pretty decent like it is." So a- and that makes me feel good when I see those, especially when I see them that are submitted from other countries and things like that, because there's a lot of people that I have come in contact with in other countries and man, you think it's hard to find good feed around here. It's important to include what you're feeding too, though. Yes, I do need to know that. Yeah. And I don't answer them. I defer to him for all of those questions. I've got my... he made a post, a weekly post, and I did not realize you did this, but an automatic weekly post in the Incubation Masterclass Facebook group that says, "Here, ask Jennifer all your questions." And this week's got 36 questions. You know what? Sometimes you put me out there, so- You did this time joke's on you. So all right. Now there's two resources if you guys need more information. But today's podcast is more like a hodgepodge. There's... the only theme is- we got- listener questions quite a few questions. Yeah. Yeah. So I just pulled some that I thought might resonate with more than one person actually. I really think that a lot of the questions do resonate with more people because being in the classroom- I have students that don't wanna ask questions because they don't want other people to say, make some sideways comment. And let's be honest, posting some crap in a Facebook group is about saying it in front of a bunch of high school kids. I can see that. Because some folks, you could ask a question and people will chastise you like you're an idiot. You don't know if you if you never ask the question and get a honest answer, you never know. So we encourage them however we get them. Yeah. Whether it's in the group, via email, whatever. We like it. Messenger, carrier pigeon. Did y'all know that I have carrier pigeons, or just pige- I don't know if they're carrier pigeons. I don't know anything about pigeons, but two pigeons showed up two years ago in the cow barn, and now we have, David said there's 17 now. Making a really big mess over there. I asked somebody, somebody probably had them that raced pigeons, and they got lost on their way back. Oh, they're blue. I don't know if that matters. Or they found your place and they're like- Heck yeah this lady feeds every day. There's no cleanup day here. If we hang out and don't get in a whole lot of trouble, she'll let us stay. Yeah. When they start covering the entire house, then we'll have to eradicate some pigeons. That's a You have to cull some. I have to cull some. Yeah, we'll have squab for dinner. Isn't that what s- what pigeon is, squab? I don't know. Yeah, I think it's squab. Okay. So question number one is yours. Electrolytes. are they necessary for freshly hatched chicks? I hope not- because I don't do it. And, I would even say that for shipped chicks, if it's a situation where those suckers was in a post office truck for three and a half, four and a half days, then you're probably gonna need to do everything you can to keep them alive for the first 24 hours. But you work out a lot better to make something up yourself than using what you get in a packet. Because a lot of times, those things that come in the packets have a whole lot of salt, essentially. And- Aren't they just salt and sugar? Most of them. Literally, it's just that, which, for a person, that might be a totally different story- it may work, but for a chick you don't really... You want them to drink water, but you don't want them to retain it- Oh like you do water weight. So you can make one that, very simple, take a gallon of water find you some apple cider vinegar, two ounces of that. If you can get your hold of some blackstrap molasses, an ounce of that. Little bit of ginger, teaspoon of that, teas- just a teaspoon of salt, no more. Put all that in a gallon jug, shake it up really good, set it in the closet or the refrigerator at least overnight. Two, two days is way better because it will... Don't screw the lid on tight just kinda sit something over it or put Saran wrap over the top and put a rubber band on it, because it will start to ferment a little bit. But that makes a really good electrolyte mix. A lot of the really old-timers called it switchel. But that works really well, and it's all natural. So the blackstrap molasses was, is that just sugar for energy or has it got other stuff? So sugar for energy. It also helps it ferment, because you do want it to start to ferment. And the smell that it puts off, between the smell of that, it, it tones down the bitterness of the vinegar, and it makes them want to drink it. Like in the wintertime when you have some hot chocolate and you're really cold and you want it, you crave it, it'll do that. It'll make the chicks want it because chicks are... Whether you're talking about chicken chicks or quail chicks, they're very curious, especially poults. And they'll do it just to smell it and see what it is. Now, you're talking about the blackstrap molasses, like on the roadside stand from the Amish or something, not the pasteurized stuff at the store. You're not gonna get the same effects out of the pasteurized stuff from the store. Now, will it provide the smell, the sweetness, and that sort of stuff? Yes, but it's not really going to assist the fermentation as much. But something's better than nothing Okay. And the apple cider vinegar, I started making my own last year or the year before, and I was really shocked at how easy it is. There is a recipe for it on my website- at briansroost.com, and I actually have some fermenting on my counter right now. You're supposed to put it in the dark, but the last time I put mine in the dark I forgot about it for four months. And so it kinda like- Nice went overkill. So this time, I put it on the counter and just wrapped a dish towel around it. There you go. That'll make you think about it more in a month- It- yeah and then maybe not four months from now. It's almost done. But yes, it is easier to make. It's not rocket science. But I will say getting a, one of those apple peelers that suction cups to your desk- Oh or your table, and you can put a Amazon link to one of those on the page for this p- episode. But you just shove your apple on that and you just ch ch, and then you slide... The apple comes off like a big spring. So you can eat that, and it's great. You can freeze-dry it, and it's great. And you can throw all your peels and a couple of chunks, like, all you... The core- that, nobody does jack with a core except for feed it to the goats. You throw it in that jar, make some apple cider vinegar. Mine are made with all the cores, and I gave the peels to the goats. So- I stuff all that in the jar. Oh, they just put so much crap on the apples, and so I just throw them out. But- Look, I'm bougie, okay? When I go to the Costco or the Sam's, I get the organic ones. Yeah, I know, but they still put crap on them. Okay. But it's literal crap. It's not something that's gonna kill me. When my, when I first got started back in chickens what, 15 years ago now I just put a little honey in ours' chick water, just a little sugar to put them on a sugar high, basically, and get them- Yeah active. But now you can just throw a couple quail chicks in there and they'll all turn into spazzes. I've given them jitter juice, which is essentially that mix that I talked about earlier concentrated, and it's, i- if they're kinda acting sluggish, you give them that and they're like, "Whoa, hey, this is nice," and they drink it like crazy. And then they get that sugar high- And it's will you guys slow down? You're gonna run into the wall of the brooder and knock yourself unconscious or something. I'll put a link to your Jitter Juice on the website. So in case y'all have missed it, we started putting a compa- we're calling it a companion blog, for lack of a better term, on the website. So every Thursday you can go there, watch the video, and read more information about what we talk about and with the links on there. So those are released on Thursdays. All right, next topic is dry hatching. It seems to be a difficult concept. Oh yeah, it is. I have made pinned post about it in the Incubation Masterclass Facebook group. So dry hatching is really not the right term. It should be dry incubating. It literally means don't add water. It's dry. And you know what? If y- if you're in the South- It works where the humidity is high and y- your r- relative humidity inside the room is already in the 40s and your humidity inside your incubator is already in the 40s- then you don't need to add water. It's where it's supposed to be. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I've seen people in Colorado try it and get really mad because they had a really horrible hatch, and I'm like, Your relative humidity is 15." What do you expect? It can go low like that, but it won't necessarily be ideal. So the answer to dry hatching is no, it is not a fix-all for everything. But if you are struggling with high humidity, it is okay to not add water and see what happens. So your ideal starting point, nobody can tell you what the ideal humidity is in your incubator in your house in your city in your state. I can tell you that a good starting point is around 40%. But it's up to you- To weigh the eggs and find the point where you're losing between 11 and 13% weight in the, from day zero to lockdown day. That's your goal, somewhere between 11 and 13%. And that is how you fine-tune humidity for your micro environment. But I wanna interject. Why? Because there's one thing that I have seen numerous people, I incubated these the way I always do, and I, they were all sterile. None of them were fertile." Tell me about your process." All right. I know the breeder. I know that's not their process. And I'll say did those particular eggs come with any type of instructions?" "Oh, yeah, they came with a whole bunch of crap, but I didn't look at it." Folks, I wanna tell you something. If you take your time and you pick out a breeder that has been breeding for more than five minutes, and you like 'em, they have good results, they have good birds, and they send you a set of instructions that says, "Get your incubator here. Put them in. Wait till this day. Change this." Voila. If you don't do that and you have a bad hatch, it's your fault, not theirs. Because while we've got the incubation master class, and we tell you best practices, and we tell you things that work for us, like Jennifer was saying, different things are different. So if someone says, My eggs work best when you incubate at this temperature and this humidity level, and you hatch at this temperature and this humidity level," unless you've been hatching that same thing for a hot minute, try their instructions. Yeah. Because the age of the breeders makes a difference. The size of the eggs makes a difference. The breed makes a difference. The pigment on the eggs makes a difference, which we're gonna talk about. That's another question. But for this one, dry hatching, yes, I totally agree. Follow the breeder's instructions over the halfway English instructions that came with the Chinese incubators. Was that- Yeah the nice way of saying that? Now, look, if you want to not read instructions period- Don't read the ones for your incubator. No. Unless you're trying to figure out which button translates to English to change the settings. Oh, just for a- 'Cause- good laugh maybe. I've got some that the writing on them was all in another language, all righty. Hatching upright, that would probably be the second most popular question nowadays. Must be coming from somewhere. I do not know where on the big old Facebook world. You know what group it's coming from. Okay. Hatching- It's that same group that everybody that has birds in their backyard goes to. Oh, my word. Okay. I'm booted- from that group. I d- I can't see it. Okay. No. So hatching upright is a tool. You, to be a successful incubatee, tor. What's the word? Incubator? No, incubator is what you put- Incubatees incubatees in. Incubatist? But that just sounds really... Whatever you put the eggs in. How about incubatist? Okay. So hatching upright is a tool in your toolbox that you should use if they are shipped eggs, if they have displaced or saddled air cells- or you have struggled with high humidity. When an egg is in process, it is losing moisture, and if you have had your moisture level too high, it could not evaporate it off, and therefore, the chick could drown or be sticky. Yeah. So hatching upright literally lets gravity do the work for you, brings the moisture to the pointy end where the feet should be, and keeps it away from the air cell. If it's a shipped egg with a saddled air cell or displaced air cell, it should be upright anyway. Now- this is all caveat assuming that you have incubated vertical. If you are trying to incubate a displaced or saddled air cell or any other ps- anomaly, strange anomaly horizontally, you are gonna have problems anyway. I highly encourage anybody shopping for an incubator to find a- One that holds it upright, vertically, like a Maddie Coopix or a Chick Cozy or a Hatchin' Time or anything. I don't care what it is. Anything that holds them upright, you're going to have a better hatch rate. Now, if it's a normal, got the eggs out of your backyard or your neighbor's backyard, no issues, temperature and humidity's been on point, then lay those puppies on their sides and let them hatch. Yeah. There's no reason to be upright. Okay, the bloom. I don't know why this is a source of such controversy. So an egg is an entire mechanism that you can either eat for breakfast or grow a chick out of. Every single thing that a chick needs to form and grow is inside this egg, and when I hand that to somebody, they trust that is going to happen because that's nature and that's how it was made and then they want to scrub the first line of bacterial defense off of it. I don't- I got... I got a weird one for you. Okay. I had somebody, number one, that I'd never talked to before, but I was familiar with their stuff, and they said that they wanted to get some eggs, but they wanted them washed. Okay. Have you- do people ever ask you to wash them first? No. I thought that was odd. I was like, I said my birds are on wire. They're, you're not gonna get eggs with poop on them or anything." And they specifically said they didn't want the bloom on it. Oh, that's different. So I was like- So they- why don't you wash it off? I bet they probably didn't want the heavy bloom. Now, I shipped an order a couple weeks ago to a guy who specifically asked for egg- shiny eggs without a heavy bloom. That is an inheritable trait, and and that's not what he wanted. So- But if, with it being an inheritable trait, would washing it off make a difference? No. You're just opening up the pores for contamination. That's what I was thinking. So the bloom seals the... An egg has about 7,000 pores in it, and the bloom seals those up. So it's the first line of defense against bacteria. And then the shell is the hard surface, so think helmet for the egg contents. And then you have a membrane, and then you have another membrane, and then you have the albumen. And the pH of the albumen is the last line of defense against bacteria. It is a- The pH of the what? What? The pH of the what? Albumen, the white. That word cracks me up. Sorry. The egg white. Okay. Yeah. It is a proven fact that, like research paper proven, that if you wash eggs, you will allow bacteria to grow inside the eggs. Now- So that's why if you wash your eggs, you gotta put them in the refrigerator. If you don't wash your eggs, you can leave them- Exactly sitting on the counter for a month, and they'll be all right. Exactly. So the thing that we see most often repeated on social media is hydrogen peroxide, and that there is sc- air quotes, science backing that up. I am very familiar with the research paper that cites the hydrogen peroxide. First of all, what we can buy at the store is 3%. What they used was 5%. Second, they used clean eggs from clean nest boxes that were collected multiple times per day and set in sterile trays to go into clean incubators. No floor eggs were used and are ever used in incubators at hatcheries. And then they don't wash them. They fumigate them. It's literally in the title of the research paper, that they fumigated them. So if you can kinda imagine when they set all these eggs into the plastic trays, they put them in a cold room, and then they have an aerosol machine that keeps the humidity up. I was gonna say I think about a bug bomb- Exactly when you say the word fumigate. I'm like, okay, so we've got like a hydrogen peroxide 5%, or- Yes they may even use the 12% solution. And they lock the eggs in here in, in a sterile environment. And then they just fill it- With vapor of peroxide to further the sterileness. But the problem with that, 'cause I see people do that. They're like, "Oh, I s- I swear by it. I get a better hatch, and da." But I've also seen their incubators, and they're not sterile. And you have to understand two pieces of information I wanna reiterate here. One is this is a very closed system with very precise mechanics. The rooms are cold. They're kept at a certain humidity. They have a down pressure on them, a negative pressure on them, and they're aerosoled. And then even the hallways of these hatcheries are kept at a certain temperature with a certain negative pressure in order to prevent condensation before they go. It's an entirely closed loop s- system. It's like a clean room in a science lab. Exactly. And so when we're And when they did all of that, guess how much the hatch rate changed. Now- Like 2%? Exactly, 2%. Really? And we're talk- yes. And we're talking about over 500,000 eggs a week. Some of the big hatcheries are doing a million eggs a week now. So 2% of that is what? 1,000 eggs maybe. Oh, shoot. I'm gonna have to break out my calculator for that one. It's- it's late in the afternoon. So if you want to do that at home, that's fine. But don't say it's science, because that is not what the science paper said. Oh, man. Just say, "Hey, you know what?" It's like 10,000 eggs if you're doing half a million a day. Yeah. It's a week. A week. But- Whatever. It's nothing, though my beef is not that you wash your eggs, that you spray your eggs. I don't really care what you do with your eggs, but don't say it's science, because it's not. That's my beef. That's my soapbox for the day. Yeah. I don't, and I don't wash eggs, by the way. No. Okay, moisture loss. So these heavy pigmented eggs, people talk about the Maran eggs, the blue eggs, the heavy bloomed eggs. The Barrens so side note, something you may not even know about me is I raised Marans for a while. This is actually my picture. I do remember that. So yeah. But I'll say this. Three years, four years ago at the Ohio National, when Rip said, I'm fixing to go do some judging. I'll be back." I said, "I thought you're a retired judge. You gonna walk around out there?" He goes, "I'm judging the eggs." I said, "Excuse me?" He said, "Oh yeah, they have egg shows just like they have chicken shows." They do. I said, "Really?" He said, "Follow me." And that's a thing. I know, 'cause I won. Yeah, 'cause you got that pretty little purple ribbon there. I have a picture of it, but that's another story. Okay. So when people ask about Maran eggs the gut reaction would be to raise the humidity to soften the egg shell and the pigment. That is actually opposite of what you should be doing, because the idea behind the egg, if you remember, is to lose the moisture, and as you do that, everything becomes more brittle. Think- old concrete. When it loses its moisture, it crumbles. Or drywall. And you can really see that when you hatch quail in a tabletop, and like the top, like it just goes pfft. Yep. And this little gremlin pops out. So what you want, what happens here is that dark pigment can be so thick that it actually occludes the pores of the egg. And so what we want to do is dry it out more so it's making it more brittle, so the chicks can exit the egg easier. Yeah. If that makes sense. 'Cause a lot of them will, they'll use their beak to chip at it, and that- that's where pipping comes from, air quotes. Yep. Is when they, when they're pipping, that's their beak hitting the outer shell in the egg. And it's kinda funny when you if you get to see one, and, they pip and their beak comes out and then you see their head and it's "Let me out." So- And I'm like, "No, do it yourself. I don't want failure to thrive." So just keep in mind that pigment can block some of the pores, which keeps the egg from losing moisture as quickly as it would with a generally white or beige egg. And so if you are going to handle these dark pigmented eggs as your line, it is very important that you weigh them and find the proper humidity for your line with your pigmentation. I can only tell you the science behind it, but this is another one of those things where breeders know their lines, and you should listen to them when they send you eggs, because they should know what is working. But again- You'd like to hope that the hen's hatching their environment is different than your environment. Okay? So you need to understand the science behind it and apply that- And what was that percentage of loss you said that you should be looking for? 11 to 13%. 11 to 13%. So- So if you start off with 100 gram egg- Oof and you calculate out the humidity level to where in 21 days it weighs- 18 or 18 days, it weighs 87 ounces or 88 ounces. Grams. Grams. Then you- You've got some dinosaur eggs. I did see some emus the other day. Anyways that's where your 11 to 13% comes from, and once you figure that out, then I would lock those numbers in because that's where you're gonna get the best hatch rate out of your incubator in your house or wherever you have your incubator. Let me ask- and it's fine-tuned let me ask stress that seasonally. You should always spot test it- It yes as the seasons change. Because when the seasons change, the humidity outside changes. The relative humidity in your house changes, thus the relative humidity inside your incubator will change. And it's not hard to weigh the eggs. I call it my little cocaine scale. I don't know, it's just a little thing and it comes with a weight. It's $9. Do you feel like, do you feel like Pablo when you have that thing out, just like- No, I don't know who Pablo is. I've never seen cocaine. I just call it that because it's what I see in the movies when they're weighing stuff out. But- most of those movies are about Pablo Escobar. Oh, okay. I don't know. So- Yeah it comes... like they'll go up to 500 grams or something. It comes with a little weight- where you can calibrate it. But I just write it right on the egg. Most of mine are in the 50s or 60s. And you mean your Sharpie's not gonna bleed through and affect the chick? Oh, good Lord, if it did, I wouldn't have any chickens, 'cause I Sharpie everything. Okay. Turning. I was try- it was late and I was trying to find a picture of something, and I thought, you know what? Some of those cheap incubators, they do kinda look like this Ferris wheel spinning around. You lay it down on its side and it's like those things could be the little arms that roll them around. Yeah, I see that. Yeah. Okay, so turning. For whatever reason, and I have a theory, let's, okay, why people said don't turn shipped eggs for the first week, first of all, I wanna smack that person, but second of all, I suspect that happened during the Nature Right 360 craze, where they said don't turn them because those things would vibrate the chicks to death. Literally. So yeah, don't turn them if you're using that. But what happens is the m- first week is the most important week for turning, so you definitely don't wanna not turn. So what happens is the yolk will float up, and the blastoderm is on the top of the yolk, and it floats up, it adheres to the m- the membrane, and- And it never goes anywhere else and it sticks and it dies. That's why turning is so important. Yeah. So- You know I'm all for letting eggs sit if they're shipped eggs for 12 hours, 24 tops. But- it's unnecessary it's un- yeah. Because I have done it, and I have not done it, and I still get a great hatch rate. So if it's cold outside, if I ship eggs in January and they're cold, then they need to come up to room temperature before you put them in the incubator. Oh, yeah. Definitely. But if I ship eggs in June, and the back of a mail truck could be 110 degrees, the incubation starts. You need to take the egg and put them in the incubator as soon as you get them. And so again, seasonally make your decision. Vertical, again, is best. Now, this is why, and all the people who say the hen leaves them ver- horizontal," yes they do. They really do, but here's the thing. When you hen hatch, that is a totally different ballgame, and we've got a different podcast on that- where we talk about hen hatches versus using an incubator, and it's I've had really good hatches with a broody hen when it's 40 degrees outside. But you stick that old NR 360 out on the back porch when it's 40 degrees- I'd be amused if you had a good hatch rate the problem is obviously the lack of insulative qualities, but vibration. When the plastic-on-plastic gears turn and rolls the egg on p- a hard plastic surface, that is a vibration that doesn't happen in nature. And- And I get that, but, I'll say this. I've got a dang brood, two broody hens in the same brood pen, and at first one was over in the far back right corner and the other one was in the far back left corner. And then after about a week, them two heifers had combined their eggs together and they were both sitting there two besties hanging out- at a coffee shop. And but there's still gonna be a great hatch rate. It when we take control and try to be Mother Nature, all that crap is off. They're rolling them around on cypress mulch, probably over other chickens. Bink box. They're using their bink because they're, they don't have soft hands. They're doing all that crap, and we can't... It's not for us. When we take Mother Nature out of it, it's gotta be perfect. So if you're shopping for an incubator, buy a vertical standing one, and they want them to rock gently at 45 degrees. The timing doesn't matter. No less than every two hours, but you can't overturn. That is not possible. Okay. The mythical exploders. So Jason, one of our moderators in the Incubation Masterclass, he's on the quest to find people who really do have exploders, and we are not saying that it possibly could not happen, but the myth of them existing commonly is not true. I would go out on a limb and say I've incubated hundreds of thousands of eggs at this point maybe, and I've never had one. Okay. So it's not mythical. Now, it's not an explosion like what you see- here. You like my graphics today? I do love the graphics. But I will say that if you have a large pen that you have a bunch of hens in, and some of those hens like to play hide-and-go-seek with their eggs, and you happen to find one, say, in July, that was previously covered up for God only knows how many days because you didn't hunt, and choose, and peck, and play hide-and-go-seek every day when you went out there to get eggs, you, you might have one that doesn't do this, but the egg leaks so bad that everything comes out of it, and it makes your house smell like a sewage pump truck- did that. But it didn't explode. It just oozed, right? I wasn't inside the incubator when it happened. But there was, like, brown and black crap all over. And it stunk so bad my wife said, You're getting a barn. That's going out of here." Okay. It- but you- it, it smelled rough but you had an old egg. Oh, yeah. It w- it was 100% that's what it was. Okay. It wasn't like the mythical exploding egg that comes out of, super chickens. So I've had oozers. I'm not gonna say you can't have an exploder, but there has to be circumstances leading up to it that you could prevent. Oozers- There- Ducks are famous for oozers- 'cause they bury their eggs. Yeah, it's... if you have to play hide-and-go-seek to find eggs, then your chances of what people call exploders is higher than having a clean environment and birds that are perfectly trained to use a nest box 110% of the time. Yeah. Good luck with that. So we're back to clean nest boxes again. Yeah. And so if I... And I collect eggs every day- out from my chickens and if, mine like to lay in the corners in the peat moss. They will not lay in the nest boxes. The big Orpingtons won't. And occasionally they will dig out in the corners and the eggs will kinda roll down in the corner of the building, right? And if I, for any reason, think that egg has been there longer than yesterday, I toss it at the fence post. There is no reason to try to save it. It is not worth the risk in my opinion. So I will put the dirt back and look at it and I know that, what I've done and that eggs would be fresh tomorrow basically. It is not worth it and I- I ain't putting it back I will throw it at the fence post. If it was a fresh egg, the chickens eat the yolk and they're perfectly happy. Look, how many times have you launched a egg out into the field and it bounce? A lot. And that is crazy. Because you hear about so many people and their nightmares of getting cracked eggs in the mail, but I can launch mine across the field- and they bounce. I know. I like to hit the tree. Now, if you do walk into your house and you smell something, and you will know what that smell is once you smell it- you have an oozer, and that looks like yellow foam usually on the surface of the egg. Yeah. When you find that, take a grocery bag, a plastic grocery bag, and very gently pick it up and take it out. If it is cemented- Stick your hand through the bag- Yes grab it with the bag, pull it back through, and tie that son of a gun up before you move with it. Or if you're like me, take it out very carefully, giggle in the whole way, and launch it at a tree so you can smell it for three days. Now- I mean- Sometimes they stick to the turners. In that case you take all the eggs out. Take that, the turner, the egg, everything out outside. Break, you'll have to break it and you'll have to wash the turner. And you know what? That might be a situation where you wanna get some of that vinegar in a spray bottle and spray the crap out of it. You might can get it to turn loose where you don't break it and smell it And think about throwing your whole turner away Yeah, you might just do that. But- Okay other than that, don't use vinegar. All right, so we're gonna tell you about Incubation Masterclass. If you want to learn more about incubation and all the things that go with it and dialing in your process, you can use coupon code FB50, and that will get you 50% off, and you can also- 50% off. Yeah, I know. And you can- We're giving them 50% off? We are in this podcast. Makes it cost like nothing. Or if you are in the Facebook group. I know. We're trying to help people do better, but- Oh, yeah cost to run a website. I forgot about that part. I forgot about that. We do have to pay for the website. So you can also join the Facebook group and ask me all of your questions. Once a week, I pay attention and try to help everybody. And when we putting the Incubator Masterclass together, we really tried out some of the sketchiest things Amazon had to offer, and tried some of the same tips and tricks that we've done with a lot of other stuff. And, there's people out there that say you can't have a good hatch rate with a $20 incubator. If you take the Incubation Masterclass and you learn some of the tips and tricks, we can tell you how to do it. Yep. And it's simple. I have successfully hatched in a TriCottage. I have a YouTube video about it. Oh, yeah. There, there's a- there's a method to it. Yeah. But you can either learn from us, do it a bunch of times on your own eggs. Please don't buy some expensive eggs and try it the first time. Don't want you to be disappointed. We love y'all too much. If you like the, if you like this show, hit Subscribe. Yep. Find it- If you don't, jennifer@poultrynerdspodcast.com. Let her know. Emails we only send one email a week, and that is Thursdays telling you about that day's podcast and the release with the links and everything that we talk about, and we release the show on YouTube on Sundays. Yep. But if you want the Amazon links to the crap that we talk about and all that good stuff, you're gonna have to check out that blog page on our website, poultrynerdspodcast.com. Thank you for tuning in to this episode, please like and subscribe for more episodes and visit PoultryNerdsPodcast.com for show notes and links