Can anyone tell by looking at my dead chick in it's shell why it may have died at the last minute?

[holliewould]

Here is a pic of the dead, fully developed emu in his shell with it broken half open. All I can see that is possibly weird is the big egg sack. I also wrote on the image which end is the small end. Was he possibly not positioned correctly? I am pretty upset

 

[briefvisit]

In 2012, Holliewould, I busted open an egg abandoned in the nest -- 'infertile' I thought of it as. It contained a fully-grown dead chick. Completely formed.

In 2013, Hollie, I did likewise with an egg left by Noddie Big Ears Emu -- same: fully-formed dead chick.

I have no idea . . .

se

 

[birdeo]

my best guess is # 1 it was malpositioned in addition to # 2 too high humidity during incubation.
It's a sad find and am so sorry for your loss
but better monitoring of the weight loss/ etc. on your part would possibly help in the future, if you want to try again.
This goes for ALL eggs, please know the proper humidity & temp.'s needed and watch carefully for a successful hatch.

 

[EmuChemainusBC]

Hi Holliewould,
I feel really bad for you at the moment. I know from experience that when we incubate (rather than an emu dad) we put a lot of extra heart and soul into the process and when it goes awry it's very disappointing.
There is a book however that you can get used on the internet written by a highly regarded emu farmer from Texas. There are two volumes (and I would recommend that you get both) and it is called The Emu Farmer's Handbook by Maria Minnaar (1998). It is the bible of emu husbandry for a lot of people and I know of very experienced emu farmers who refer to it continually. Minnaar will recommend that emus are incubated at a fixed temperature of 97.5 and a varying humidity of 24 - 35 %.
I don't know if you have other eggs hatching, but I do hope that you will not be too discouraged and will try again. I wonder if ES has any more eggs for sale in Virginia? Best Wishes.

 

[ES Emus]

Don't beat yourself up over what you may have done wrong because you probably didn't do anything wrong. The fact is that not every emu chick hatches. The hatching process is very taxing on emu chicks and nature sees that only the strongest of the chicks actually make it out of the egg. We keep our humidity between 30-40% and we have a very high hatch rate, but it is not 100%. Don't give up...

 

[ES Emus]

Hi Holliewould,
....I don't know if you have other eggs hatching, but I do hope that you will not be too discouraged and will try again. I wonder if ES has any more eggs for sale in Virginia? Best Wishes.

Hey EmuChemainusBC!
We have now completed our egg producing season and are completely sold out of eggs and chicks.
ES

 

[briefvisit]

Yes, Holliewould. Remember that Feathers the Emu will be a part of your life for perhaps twenty years. Stay in orbit here; read past threads; try again later.

se

 

[Jchantecler]

I'm sorry for your loss, it's always sad in situations such as these. Some advice I'd give for a future emu hatch would be to not pay as much attention to the percent humidity your thermometer says, rather the weight loss in the egg. As all eggs vary in thickness, size, etc, they will all need slightly different humidities to lose the adequate amount of weight. This is what I do for most eggs I hatch of any species- focus on what the egg is showing, and use thermometers as an additional tool. Sorry for your loss.

 

[birdeo]

What about if the weight loss measures are taken weekly rather than in small increments? The goal is 15% weight loss over approx. 50 days. So fine adjustments made 7 times over the hatch if necessary would in my mind be easier on the chick and definitely easier on the surrogate. The variables in nature ie Dad moving often or not, turning or not turning, inside or outside of the nest.....etc would encourage us I would say to err on the side of not doing as much as we might be inclined.

Your weight losses could very well rocket up to 20% + in the first week then bottom out in the second, you really don't want to go by " averages" .
Best to keep them on a constant weight loss , fluctuating losses are not ideal.
Eggs will usually want to lose too much weight in the first week then level out until the last week , last week being a main
reason a lot of ref. will say to raise the humidity then.
Why no info. that I've found ( other than the Emu Farmers Handbook) deals with having to possibly need to raise the humidity level in the " first" week is beyond me .
The weight loss
needs to be checked/corrected/maintained on daily basis aiming for the ideal 15%.
In most cases you can get them close to that 15% in the first week then just spot check weigh 1x a week until the last week. ( depends again on the porosity/quality of the shells )

Mother nature is a tough cookie to beat, we can only try to mimic her and hope for the best.

 

[holliewould]

It's a sad find and am so sorry for your loss
but better monitoring of the weight loss/ etc. on your part would possibly help in the future, if you want to try again.
This goes for ALL eggs, please know the proper humidity & temp.'s needed and watch carefully for a successful hatch.

I monitored that egg from day one with the weight loss. The very first day at 30% humidity it lost 4 grams, when it should have lost only 1.9 grams. From everything I read, when it loses too much weight, you increase the humidity. At any given time, at most I only had the humidity at 40%. I was constantly increasing up to maximum 40% humidity because of the extreme weight loss.

Can you PLEASE confirm that when an emu egg loses too much weight that it needs the humidity increased? Should I have increased it to 50% to stop the weight loss?

What do you think about the egg sack? Is that egg sack really big for an emu chick that was chirping for two days? What does that egg sack indicate?

From this pic, do you think the chick was not positioned correctly in his shell? If so, what makes you think that? The head was under the egg sack. Should the head have been placed against the small end? Or towards the big end?

Sorry for all of the questions, but I want to try again without these results

If it helps with evaluating this situation, I have the records, along with videos of wiggles, of weight loss, and chirps. I want to do it right. I don't EVER want to open up an egg with a one pound fully developed emu baby in it again. Thank you for any input.