I have experienced exactly what you have with the early and late mortalities. With shipped eggs there are extra factors I guess that contribute to this. Here are 2 websites that might help you try to figure out what might have happened. I found them to be helpful and hope you will too. This...
Yes if it was alive it would shows signs of life--its head or body would move, heart would be beating. You definitely would see something going on. I did an eggtopsy on my last batch and had one just like yours. Good luck with the rest!
I would personally do a "float it and see if it wiggles" test on any egg that is a couple days late before I discarded it--but that is me. Forgive me if you know this information already but I figured if you didn't that it might help.
If you are going to try this make sure the eggs have no...
This morning when I went out to check on my broody Marans (who is sitting on 10 eggs all due to hatch today) I found a little peeper peeping!! What a nice Mother's Day present for her and me! And another one starting to hatch open. I promised myself no more checking under her!! When they are...
The same thing happened to me with my hen. She had been sitting on 11 eggs for almost a week. Then one day when I checked on them one was broken and all the other eggs were coated and sticky. I didn't know what to do and I left them alone. A few days later she got off the nest and went to an...
I had a similar situation a few years ago. The hen was not on her eggs and the eggs were really cold. I figured since the eggs were cold the embryos couldn't have survived. So I opened the egg and low and behold the embryo was still alive! Boy was that a sick feeling! I bet your eggs are...
Oh how adorable!! What good chickens they are! I have one that been sitting on a dozen eggs for 5 days but someone is beginning to eat her eggs and made a mess in the nest box.Now I don't know what to do.
Meanwhile, back in the incubator I had 2 chicks hatch early in the wee hours yesterday...