Does anyone know anything about chicken eggs and incubation etc. ? A friend of mine is house-sitting and the people have chickens lying on enormous piles of eggs. Do the chickens sit on the eggs if they are have not been fertilized? My friend was told to discard the eggs or eat them. The eggs are not fresh enough to eat, so I would like to maybe help them hatch since they will be thrown in the trash otherwise. My snake would like em I don't plan on buying an incubator but I was hoping there could be a way to keep them warm some other way maybe a home made incubator?

I don't know much about chicken eggs, but our landlady and friend breeds birds and I would suggest that, from what she has told me, the chicken would incubate the eggs fertile or not, and if they are fertile they should hatch. No expert on this, and I will try to get you more info, but as far as I know, if you want to self-incubate, the temps are much higher than needed for most reptile eggs.

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

lol, all the relatives on my mom's side are ranchers. A chicken will incubate its eggs, fertile or not. Unless they have any roosters, none of the eggs will be fertile. As a kid it was one of my chores when visiting grandparents to collecvt eggs from the henhouse. With all hens, none of the eggs were fertile. All ya do is reach under and grab the eggs. If there are roosters present though, there's probably some fertile ones. Depending on how old the eggs are, you can actually see the embryo inside if you hold the egg to a light. I dunno what sort of luck you'd have with a homemade incubator though, but you can usually buy incubators pretty cheap online or at farm supply stores.

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

The eggs are about a week old. I'll just let my friend throw them out for the raccoons to eat. I read that they take 21 days to hatch. My snake is hungry now. I guess she will just have to eat the usual store bought rat. I plan on trying to feed my burm chickens soon though because I have to feed my snake several rats each feeding and it is getting rather expensive.

a good thing to do with old eggs....biol them and feed them back to the chickens, they love them, but you hafta make sure the shells are off and they cant tell its an egg or tyhey wil;l; start eating their eggs just crumble tem up and throw them to them, the shells will give them hardfer shelled eggs to lay, and its better than letting the racoons know there are chickens around.

oh btw baby chickens are sooo cute