Will My Cracked Egg Still Hatch?

[suzettex5]

So, here's my story, I'm hoping for some advice......
I have a Maran doing the natural hatching thing, she's been sitting on her 8 eggs for about 17 days now. I have candled all the eggs and they all have lots of movement and seem about the same size (the embryo inside)
My problem is, yesterday around 3 in the afternoon, we took the eggs out for a final candeling look, and my 2 year old son somehow managed to snatch one of the eggs from the basket, and before I could stop him, he kinda banged the egg on a shelf. It got a cracked dent the size of the pad on my thumb and some hairline cracks that went almost halfway around.
The dent had some raised edges that were raised up and kinda seperated from the egg, but no pieces of the shell fell off, and there was no leakage from any cracks. I felt horrible. I did immediatley put clear nail polish on all the cracks, and then I just put it back under the hen. I figured if it was gonna die, it would do so overnight. But today when I checked it (candled it) to see if it had died, it was still moving a lot. Should I let it stay under my hen? I'm worried it will contaminate my other eggs. The nail polish is not where it would be pipping, so no danger of it getting trapped if it was to survive. Does anyone think it has a chance of hatching and did I do the right thing in terms of repair? Thanks to all who have advice!!!

 

[CindyS]

Thats exactly what I would have done, I have had to repair many eggs and I use nail polish (not clear though, its a bright pink)

, I had a bantam egg hatch a few weeks ago and it had to zip right through the polish and it didnt have any trouble at all! I think your egg will be fine!

 

[Kiki]

In that case, I will stick it in the incubator, along with another egg that I'm praying hatches.

I just went to check on my cracked eggs and so far they are okay. Still alive. I took a few videos of the little swimmers swimming inside the egg. That is a good sign. I'll be watching closely to see if/when they quit so I can pull them. Screenshots of two videos I just took.

 

[Peach Mom]

I have good news and bad. This morning there was yet another hen, a non broody, in the nest laying her egg. My wax coated broken egg was totally broken now. Thankfully it ended up not being fertile after all. I have had no success candling my dark brown eggs! The valuable take away for me is to never again let a hen sit in the normal nest boxes in their hen house. I had plans all along to move her but needed to set up her new location and thought things would be ok for a week and a half at the beginning....not so. It is especially hard with a very broody breed like Marans that are all wanting to hatch those lovely eggs and trying to squeeze their way in!

 

[gimmie birdies]

I have hatched eggs that cracked after day 10, but in an incubator. Hens can make a crack worse.

 

[Kiki]

I'm really hesitant to add a nest egg to my incubator eggs. I'm worried about contamination. What do you all think?

I dropped eggs the other day...from inside my Bator. I cracked them good. . I decided to not do anything to them except pick them back up and put them back into the incubator just to see what will happen.
I wouldn't worry so much about contamination from putting an egg from a nest into an incubator if I were you.
I would just watch it closely and remove it it quits.

 

[janiedoe]

I just went to check on my cracked eggs and so far they are okay. Still alive. I took a few videos of the little swimmers swimming inside the egg. That is a good sign. I'll be watching closely to see if/when they quit so I can pull them. Screenshots of two videos I just took.

Wow. You really  did crack those. Good luck! I hope they hatch for you.

 

[Teresaann24]

With my eggs that have had cracks I have used candle wax and on day 18 I removed the candle wax. So far I have had wonderful hatches from eggs fixed this way.

 

[kelseygirl707]

Yup, I cracked an egg pretty bad on day 11 I believe, and it hatched just fine.

LOL, I wondered if the baby would be able to get through all that wax, but it did!

 

[BluegrassSeramas]

What a great idea! I never heard of wax or polish helping!
Wish I knew this before!