What to do with infertile eggs ?

[Fagrifoss]

Hi there!
I was wondering, since i do some incubating in the summer and now it appears that my old rooster is not doing his job so half of my eggs are infertile.
Not that i was planning to, hahah, but the infertile eggs that you then take from the machine once you candle, are they edible or are they just ruined? seems such a waste to just throw them in the garbage.
Thank you !

 

[nuthatched]

Pitch them, incubation can also incubate bacteria.

 

[Fagrifoss]

Pitch them, incubation can also incubate bacteria.

Makes sense, thank you!

 

[aimee750]

I put mine in my compost bin.

 

[Altairsky]

I candle at day 5, I boil them for at least 15 minutes and feed them to the chickens.

 

[Ridgerunner]

but the infertile eggs that you then take from the machine once you candle, are they edible or are they just ruined?

First, let's discuss incubated eggs having bacteria inside. "Can covers a lot of territory. A piece of space junk "can" fall out of the sky and hit you or your house today. You "can" have a fender bender the next time you drive to the grocery store. The sun "can" shine today wherever you are located. While all of these are true, some are a lot more likely than others.

When a hen lays an egg about the last thing she does is put a layer we call bloom on it. This is a liquid layer that quickly dries and is very good at keeping bacteria out of the egg as long as it is intact. It is so good that a hen can hide a nest and lay eggs in it for two weeks and then incubate them another three weeks without bacteria getting inside.

If the bloom is compromised (you wash or sandpaper the eggs to clean them or they have a clump of poop or mud on them) then bacteria can get inside. The egg material is a perfect food for bacteria growth, scientists often use egg to culture bacteria. Incubation temperature is a near perfect temperature for bacteria growth. If bacteria gets inside the egg it will quickly go bad and start to stink like a rotten egg. I check my eggs by sniffing them to make sure they are OK. I have never had an egg go bad in an incubator but some people have. I can go years without an egg going bad under a broody hen.

I typically candle my eggs in the incubator at Day 7, but that is just curiosity. I want to see how many I think are developing. I mark them fertile or not and put them all back. Then at Day 18 when I go into lockdown I candle again. I remove any clears, not because I'm afraid of them going bad but just to reduce the number of eggs I need to watch during hatch. I take the clears to my compost pile and open them to see if they were developing and if I can determine when they quit if they were developing. That helps me analyzed the hatch and the eggs I set. I never candle eggs under a broody, it is inconvenient and unnecessary. I also take those unhatched eggs to the compost pile and open them. I bury the eggs deep in the compost, that's usually sufficient to stop critters from digging them out.

There is nothing inherently unhealthy about eating eggs that have been incubated as long as bacteria doesn't get inside. In some cultures incubated eggs are considered a delicacy. Do an internet search on "balut". To me that is kind of gross but so are some other things certain people consider "delicacies".

Eggs that have been incubated for a while are likely to have runny whites and/or runny yolks. If you don't want to eat them yourself you can cook them and feed them back to your flock or maybe your dog.