How to Tell a Fertile vs INfertile Egg (Pictures)

[speckledhen]

Thought you'd like to see this since so many have asked how to tell if their eggs are fertilized. The first picture is an INfertile egg.

On this one, you can see the ring, indicating fertility. This is caused by cells in the center of the blastoderm dying off and leaving a cleared out area, making that bullseye appearance. Not all are as clear as this one is, but you get the idea.

**sorry for the graininess of these photos, but they were from years ago and a not so great camera.

 

[mdbucks]

now that you kknow which is fertile, how do you get it back in the shell? anytime I open an egg the shell cracks so bad i dont htink I coud get everything back inside it ??

 

[speckledhen]

No, the embryo isn't dying. The cells are sloughing off and making an area thinner so it appears to have a bullseye. I didn't mean the embryo was dying, just certain cells. The last picture is further development from the middle picture. Here is the scientific explanation:

a Stage VII blastoderm is 2-3 cell layers thick at the periphery of the blastoderm and 5-6 cell layers thick in the center of the blastoderm (Figure. 1). If this developmental stage is viewed with the naked eye the blastoderm is a round uniform shape but is a solid white color with no donut shape. When examining a fresh egg, the white embryonic mass of cells may look similar to Figure 2. As development proceeds, cells from the center area of the blastoderm start to die off due to a pre-determined genetic program that tells the cells to die (apoptosis). These dying cells fall into the subblastodermic cavity (Figure 3). The death of the cells progresses producing a transparent thinned-out area in the center of the blastoderm. This thinned area is only one cell layer thick, while at the periphery of the blastoderm the cell mass is still three to five cells thick (Figure 4). This cell shedding produces a Stage X of development and is the most common stage of development in a freshly laid chicken egg. At Stage X, light passes through the thinned one cell layer thick area of the blastoderm, but is reflected off the 2-3 cell layer thick area at the periphery; this effect produces the donut appearance of the blastoderm (Figure 5). The center or transparent region is called the area pellucida and the peripheral area that forms the donut shape is called the area opaca. It is only the cells of the area pellucida that will eventually form the cells of the embryo.​

 

[speckledhen]

OK, I always like to save a life, so if an egg has been found to be fertile after cracking open, how do you save it and hatch it?

Well, obviously, you can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I wasn't being a smart alec, didn't want to sound that way, (went back and read it and thought maybe that was how it sounded, sorry!), but it's no more taking a life than not hatching that egg in the first place. It just gives you an idea if others might have fertility, if your rooster is doing his job. I've been checking myself lately because I have four bantam Cochin roosters in with mostly large fowl girls and wanted to know if their eggs were worth even trying to hatch at some future date. About half of the large fowl EEs' eggs are fertile and all the bantam Cochin girls' eggs are fertile.

 

[speckledhen]

That white dot is called the blastodisc. When it is fertilized and the cells being to divide, it's called the blastoderm. That is what gets fertilized, that white spot.

 

[justusnak]

Super pics Cynthia!! Thanks for shareing!

 

[Ridgerunner]

This might be an interesting read. Parthenogenesis is really rare but not unheard of.

Parthenogenesis: Embryonic development in unfertilized eggs may impact normal fertilization and embryonic mortality | The Poultry Site

 

[jolenesdad]

This might be an interesting read. Parthenogenesis is really rare but not unheard of.

Parthenogenesis: Embryonic development in unfertilized eggs may impact normal fertilization and embryonic mortality | The Poultry Site

I just cracked my polish’s first egg... I have only confirmed hens and this article explains it perfectly. Thank you!!!

 

[speckledhen]

@NewJourney don't believe everything you see on YouTube. AI is rampant in editing programs now, all over YouTube in every genre of video. Are YOU going to do that Frankenstein experiment? Is anyone? If that really happened, it was pure luck because even if you can get the chick close to hatch time, you cannot know for sure it is ready to hatch, if the yolk has absorbed, or if it even should hatch, how to regulate just the right amount of moisture in shell, etc. Some chicks should never hatch due to deformity and it's best they die in the shell as nature intended. And to even try that is pretty nuts, IMO.
What I want to know is how many chicks did this mad scientist kill/sacrifice in his quest for the improbable result? I bet the fails number was very, very high, if this was actually successful in the first place. I have my doubts about the video. We are not shown the chick drying off, don't even know if it really was alive since it was a wet chick in an egg he was lifting out, then suddenly, we see a fluffy chick. Who is to say it didn't die, that the video was just smoke an mirrors? Editing tricks are not that hard to learn if you're creatively inclined and have the right program. Some outlier experiment is not something to hang your hat on, though, just saying. Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear is a good adage.

 

[Nyna]

Neat! Thanks!