Eggtopsy: What happened to my egg? {Graphic Pictures}

Kedreeva feel free to use my pics from this post

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=241169

I had an EE with no visible signs, a Delaware that was too large for the egg and the neck was awkwardly twisted and a Blue Orp that had intestines on the outside of the body. The babies were good at lockdown but never pip or hatched. I opened them and took pics and the discussion is in that thread.

But, feel free to use them in this invaluable thread if you would like.

Here is a larger version of the Day 5 egg that you can use if you wish:



I could see the heart still beating in the embryo.

ADD: Should this thread be stickied for reference?

@ Cetawin- Was there a final diagnosis reached? I wrote what I could gleen from the thread and posted to the 1st post but if there's something wrong or that needs added, please let me know.

@Cat- Thanks for the bigger pic! You have got some really clear camera work.... I wish mine was so clear for such close ups.

This should also be a sticky. How does that happen??? The procedure for opening the egg is really helpful. I wondered how you identify if the chick pipped internally or not.

@ Sport- While they are alive, if you can hear them peeping, they've pipped internally. If they are dead, if you follow the eggtopsy procedure to first pip the egg from the top of the air cell (like I did in the video) then you will be able to see if that membrane is torn or intact. In the video, it is intact- no beak, no liquids. If they've pipped internally, you will see their beak coming through the membrane of the air cell after you pip the shell over the cell, and you may be able to see liquids or blood. Knowing whether or not a bird has pipped internally is important to any diagnosis.

Nice blog Kedreeva!

Here is a day 11 chick on an egg that I thought non-viable and cracked when I thought there was too big an air sac (half of egg). The chick was viable and I kicked myself.

Issola, that is just an amazing picture. If only it were not a picture of a lost chick, the colors are incredibly striking. Such detail as well, another amazing camera.

Quote:
I'm using a Kodak EasyShare V1003, 10 megapixel camera that I picked up off of e-Bay for $35 last fall. It's definitely been worth buying!

My last hatch started with 26 eggs. I pitched 3 early on (sorry, no pics) one had a blood ring and the other two looked cloudy and 'wrong'. So 23 eggs went into lockdown. All of them were moving before that. The eggs had been gathered from the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 18th. The last two were impulse incubations.

Of those 23, three were dead in shell.

The first was gathered on the 14th. It came from my blue egg-layers. It looks like it pipped a vein:
Here it is still partially in the shell. You can see the blood on the shell wall and on its beak.


It slid out of the shell easily. A little slick-looking, but I don't think there were humidity problems as 20 eggs hatched just fine. (And these are all from my flock, no shipped eggs.)


It did pip a little below the extent of the air sac, so it could have been poorly positioned, so that it nicked the veined inner membrane instead of pipping internally. There is still some yolk left.



This one came from our splash. DD had wanted me to check it earlier as all the others gathered on the 15th had pipped but this one and the following one. As I was adding another wet towel into the bator I saw that this one had pipped, but low against the carton, so I pulled it and the other from the 15th. No movement in either one.

Kyan's egg:
Wish I'd left it in the shell to show how low it pipped. The inner membrane is stretched out like a used parachute below it.


After uncoiling the head from the wing:


DD (Little, as Middle didn't want to see "her" egg's autopsy) wondered if this material is bacteria:




If it is, then that could be the problem with this last one (from my blue hens). It had an interior pip and it was inside the air cell, but there is a lot of that material near the yolk sac and the sac itself seems much larger and better veined than the other chicks' did:


Thanks again for the thread, Ked.
I, too, think it would make a great sticky.

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Unless there was a bad smell to the egg, I am going to say that this is probably not bacterial cultures... But that would be a good guess. If I had to make a stab at what it is, I would say that this is probably part of the exterior part of the 'white' part of the egg, or maybe the degraded spiral structures which suspend the yolk. It's also possible that it is excrement.... but I can't find anything which confirms or denies that this is something which happens.

I'll move the photos to the first post when I'm not dog-tired. They are good ones, especially the first showing a pipped vein and the close up of the white stuff. I wish I could take some off your hands and bring it in to work, I work in a research lab lol Then I could REALLY tell you what it was!