How should you deal with floor eggs?

How should you deal with floor eggs?

By definition, floor eggs are not good quality hatching eggs! Washing these eggs is inadvisable. By this stage the bacteria are often already in the egg. It makes no sense to wash the eggs. Whether or not floor eggs are washed varies from country to country. In some countries, all the floor eggs are disposed of as the quality is poor – particularly with older eggs. A batch with 2% of washed floor eggs may result in all the broilers requiring treatment with antibiotics later at the broiler farm. The best strategy is to dispose of dirty eggs to prevent poor quality day-old chicks entering the production chain. Some hatcheries prefer dirty eggs to be supplied unwashed. This avoids any mistakes, and the hatchery can decide whether to wash the eggs or not, and whether they are worth setting. Be aware that farmers may hide floor eggs between good quality eggs if the floor eggs are not paid for!

Use a Rodac plate to identify which bacteria are present ON the surface of the egg. But this will not give any information about the bacteria already IN the egg. You can remove mild soiling with your hands. Carefully remove traces of faecal material with a paper towel. Take care to avoid contaminating the clean parts of the egg with the towel. However, this has absolutely no effect on the hatching results.copyright protected

Floor eggs produce poorer quality day-old chicks. Preferably incubate these eggs separately. Each hatchery should also have a separate holding area for lower quality chicks. Segregating these chicks prevents diseases entering the production chain and benefits the performance of the entire chain. Broiler producers are often prepared to pay more for good quality chicks. Do not scrape or scour dirty eggs. Some of the dust this creates will accumulate in the pores and block them. This reduces the gas exchange. Scouring also damages the protective cuticle, and more bacteria can penetrate the egg which increases the risk of infection. Throw that egg away!

Washing at the breeder farm

If you do decide to wash the eggs anyway, do it properly and use clean water. Collect dirty eggs several times a day and wash them immediately. Note the number of dirty eggs. Never place dirty or washed eggs among clean ones. Always incubate and hatch these eggs separately. It is best to do this in separate setters so that chicks from dirty eggs do not infect good quality day-old chicks hatched from clean ones. However, chicks from dirty eggs are often mixed with a batch of day-old chicks from clean ones. This increases the risk of mortality as chicks from dirty eggs may carry Make sure the right temperature is used for washing water and do not harmful bacteria. Never wash clean eggs! Washing confuse Fahrenheit and Celsius. A temperature of 100°F (37.8ºC) is too low for effective washing water, but 100°C is boiling hot. This will boil the egg and a clean egg also removes the protective cuticle. A washed egg can never be a grade A hatching egg.destroy the embryo. An egg washer on a parent stock farm. The eggs seem nice and clean after washing, but need to be treated in the hatchery as dirty eggs, since dirt and contamination will still be present in the pores. Conditions that apply to washingcopyright protected • Use softened tap water for washing. • Use fresh water after each batch of 150 eggs. Do not reuse the water! • The temperature of the water should be approximately 42 to 45°C to prevent surface bacteria being pulled through the pores as the egg cools. Do not use warmer water, as this may kill the embryo. • Do not wash the egg for longer than 3-4 minutes. Do not rub the surface of the eggs with a cloth. This will simply spread any bacteria and increase the risk of contamination entering the egg through the pores. • Add the cleaning agent to the washing water in a concentration of 0.5 to 1% (5 to 10 grams/litre of water). • Rinse the eggs after washing using sterile water at a slightly higher temperature than the washing water. • Dry the eggs in a room with a temperature of 22°C. This room must be clean and dust-free. • Do not stack the trays of washed eggs. This will prevent them drying properly. • It is important to realise that washed hatching eggs always have an inherently higher risk of lower quality day-old chicks. Always store washed eggs separately from unwashed ones. Washing might make a floor egg appear clean. And they might even be delivered at the hatchery as ‘clean eggs’. If in doubt, UV light will quickly reveal if an eggshell has been washed or wiped.

Disinfection at the breeder farm

Disinfection usually takes place at the hatchery. If disinfection is done at the breeder farm, it must be coordinated properly with the hatchery. The hatchery should instruct the farm about the egg disinfection protocol. Also provide instructions about how to wash the eggs at the breeder farm. Otherwise the different farms will follow their own protocols, which are not all the same. This will have a negative impact on uniform egg quality - and consequently on the quality of the day-old chicks. It is often better to disinfect the eggs effectively once at the hatchery than to have a situation where various breeder farms all disinfect their eggs in different ways.

Disinfection at the breeder farm

If the eggs are disinfected at the breeder farm, preferably disinfect the eggs in a separate room with enough capacity to hold one day’s production. Then place the eggs in the storage room. Do not disinfect eggs in the storage room: most disinfectants are aggressive and can damage the copper cooling coils or other metals. It is not good practice to expose the embryo several times to disinfectants. So disinfect in moderation and most important of all - disinfect correctly. Some hatcheries only want clean eggs that are all disinfected at the hatchery. This avoids using different washing techniques and the quality of the eggs is more uniform.

The egg cuticle is a waxy layer that prevents bacteria from entering the egg. You can clearly see its effect if the cuticle is washed off. The cuticle is intact in the image on the left: a droplet of water rests on the egg. The cuticle has been washed off the egg in the image on the right: the water flows from the egg and penetrates through the pores. The eggshell also feels rough. Unwashed eggs with an intact cuticle feel smooth.copyright protected

A special dye that can be used to make the cuticle visible, when absorbed by the waxy layer. The intensity of the colour indicates the cuticle thickness: the darker the colour, the thicker the cuticle.