Am I worried about Schmutz on my eggs??
Sometimes our eggs have Schmutz on them.
That’s right, Schmutz.
It isn’t necessarily poop. Though it can be. It usually is some mud or whatnot. This is because our quail are raised on the ground. And so their eggs are also layed on the ground. Sometimes they pick a nice fluffy patch of grass to lay it in, other times they lay it in the muddiest little corner they can find! Am I worried about incubating dirty eggs? Short answer: No.
We could have 99% perfectly clean eggs if we housed them in wire pens, with roll-out bottoms (the floor is slanted so the eggs roll out, away from the birds). I TOTALLY understand why almost EVERY quail breeder houses them like this. In wire cages, the poop falls through, which makes cleaning them 1000% times easier. The birds (and eggs) are never stepping on poo. The eggs roll out to a little tray which makes collecting them sooo much easier than hunting around for them hidden in the grass! And you can house a lot of quail in a much smaller space too. They are completely safe from predators digging under or snakes coming through. I get why wire cages are popular.
But we have chosen another way. Our quail are on the ground, on grass, with dirt, and sun, and rain, and bugs, and yes, predators. But they LOVE living more naturally like this. And happy quail make their owners happy. And happy quail also lay more eggs!
So I am ok with some Schmutz on my eggs.
We keep the SUPER dirty ones for ourselves to hatch or eat (we wash them for THAT, I promise!) and we give customers the cleanest ones we have.
Some people are worried about incubating dirty eggs, but we have been putting our dirtiest eggs in and looking to see if that affects hatch rates. Guess what. We have seen NO discernible difference in the hatch rates of the dirty eggs vs the cleanest ones.
If you are a little ehhh about sticking eggs with some Schmutz on them in your incy, you can spray them with a solution of 1/2 Listerene (I use the gold colored one) and 1/2 water. It will kill any bacteria on the outside of the eggs and not harm the embryos at all. Let them air dry, do NOT wipe them (we don’t want to wipe off the protective bloom on the outside of the egg). And just make sure they are Completely dry before setting them in the incubator.
There you have it! My poop talk.