Bob,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the government/ WS, do a study on coyote attractants, and FEE (Fermented Egg Extract) came out on top?

The SFE synthetic fermented egg project was a complex chemical formal and it was very corrosive.

People laugh or think I’m lying when I say we use eggs for bait. Egg in cage or down a dirthole. Eggs give off an odor that we can’t smell but predators can. We’ll get several dozen and just leave them in the cartons until needed. Yes, you will catch everything under the sun with them. In cages we catch everything but coyotes…including cats and fox. In dirt holes set on coyote tracks you’ll catch coyotes. My son had a set that sat for 3 weeks with probably 3” of rain during that time. He’d almost forgot about it until driving by one morning and had a coyote dancing. That wasn’t the funny part, despite being caught that joker had dug down the hole to get to the egg. He FaceTimed me and it looked like the pics y’all post when a dang badger has been caught. A 1.5” auger on a drill works just perfect for an egg…plus ants don’t mess with it!!

Furbearers aren't the only animals that like eggs like that. I run incubators all year and have many thousands of eggs that don't hatch. I sell most of them to people who raise reptiles, especially tegu. They prefer the nastier smelling eggs, but will eat them all. If a rotten egg pops, the tegu go into a feeding frenzy.

In the wild, it is probably much easier for egg eating animals to find eggs that are past their prime.

I've used smashed quail eggs, that didn't hatch, for most of my trapping the last 20 years or so. I have a huge supply.

As a chick develops in an egg, the egg gets progressively stronger smelling because of the waste products the chicks produce.

Some species of reptiles, like daisypeltis snakes, won't eat an egg that is more developed, when they smell it. They have sharp pieces of bone in their throats, used to pierce the egg once but is swallowed. Eggs that are further along in development, have embryos that are to large to pass by that bony obstruction, so the snakes smell and won't eat them.

I think eggs further along in development work better for trapping because of the stronger smell. Aging the eggs in the Sun, probably mimics this stronger smell.

Keith