Results for experiment 2 indicate that there was an average decrease of a 1.5 log10 cfu/mL in APC when an eggshell and membrane complex was crushed-and-rubbed after an initial eggshell rinse (Figure 3). This confirms that a significant decrease in aerobic bacteria recovery occurs for crush-and-rub if both sampling methods are used in sequence on the same egg. The results obtained by Stephens et al. (2009), in which no differences were detected in recovered aerobic bacteria levels when using the rinse or the crush-and-rub method following the rinse, may be attributed to the fact that the sanitized eggs remained in the commercial hatchery egg holding room for 1 h after sanitizing before removal for the setting buggy. There is a high probability for fan-blown aerobic bacteria recontamination of the sanitized eggs to occur within the hatchery egg holding room because of the large quantity of nontreated eggs (47 buggies) surrounding the single sanitized egg buggy, as well as the continuous transfer of additional eggs from farm buggies to setting buggies. A secondary goal of experiment 2 was to examine whether the sampling methods used could make a difference in the efficacy of recovery for aerobic bacteria if performed separately from one another, rinse vs. crush-and-rub without a prior rinse. In the current study, sampling eggshells with the rinse method or the crush-and-rub method without a prior rinse was statistically similar, with a difference of only 0.5 log10 cfu/mL of APC between the rinse and crush-and-rub methods. On untreated eggs, rinsing alone recovered 4.4 log10 cfu/mL, whereas performing an eggshell and membrane crush-and-rub method yielded a recovery of 3.9 log10 cfu/mL. These APC recovery levels per milliliter of eggshell rinsate for broiler hatching eggs exceed the values reported by Kawasaki et al. (2008) for the entire eggshell (3.1 to 4.3 log10 cfu/eggshell) and may be attributed to their purchase of table eggs from a local supermarket in Japan, where table eggs are required to be washed before sale (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, 1998). Although there is no difference in using either recovery method for APC, it should be noted that an eggshell and membrane complex crush-and-rub method may be desirable, depending on the type of bacteria recovery necessary. Musgrove et al. (2005) examined the recovery of Salmonella from eggshells using both methods. For all the eggs sampled that had natural Salmonella, rinsing recovered Salmonella in only 23.5% of the samples, whereas the recovery increased 3-fold to 76.5% when crush-and-rub sampling was used. In addition, the study by Kawasaki et al. (2008) examined Salmonella recovery on inoculated eggs and found that swabbing alone recovered an average of 1.0 log less Salmonella than did the crush-and-rub procedure. This indicates that when looking for Salmonella on eggshells, it may be best to perform the crush-and-rub method, whereas when looking for aerobic bacteria, eggshell rinsing is as effective as the crush-and-rub method and is nondestructive.