Why I wash hatching eggs

[Davinci]

Popular wisdom says not to wash off the natural 'bloom' that is on an egg, because this bloom helps protect the developing egg from invading bacteria. I wash my eggs anyway for the following reasons.

I do not plunge them into hot, soapy water and let them soak. I wipe them with a wet cloth.

A glob of poop, when candled, can make you think you're looking at a developing chick, when in fact, it's just a blob of poop. Getting mess off the shell removes candling confusion.

With very dark eggs, green/blue eggs or eggs with mottled shells that are hard to candle, I rely on my nose to tell me if the egg is 'off'. I do the sniff test. Live eggs have one smell, dying eggs have another smell and poop on the egg can mess up the smelling! So to aid in sniffing the contents of the egg, remove poop from the shell! That way you know any bad or off smells are the coming out of the egg, and not some poop stuck to the egg.

I also don't like the idea of poop in my incubator, so only clean eggs go in. I do not set eggs that have been so dirty their shells are stained. Handling clean eggs throughout the hatching process makes the candling/sniffing process go smoother.

[prairie dog]

I've cleaned a few eggs by wiping them off , but if the bedding is clean and it's not wet outside the eggs are usually clean enough that I haven't had to worry about cleaning them .I have heard of those who do wipe every egg down due to the process of having been hatched via ? a clean incubator will also keep the bacteria down if that should be a concern .............my thoughts