? about life in late-term eggs UPDATE!!

[mothersin2ition]

Heres my story- we had an AWOL Brahma hen who we discovered was setting on a huge clutch out in the weeds. Most of them I tossed because they were early quitters or clear. Anyway, today was (I think) around day 18 and we woke up to find her hanging out with the other birds instead of on her nest

. When I checked the remaining eggs in her nest, they were all cold. I took them inside and candled. Out of 6, only one still had veins that were visible. I tossed all but one, and put it (the one with veins) in the incubator which happens to be running. My questions are: is there any chance the others were still alive? I hope I didnt kill them (oh, btw, the ones I tossed ALL smelled bad

). How soon after a late-term chick, does the veining disappear? How can I tell if this remaining egg is still alive?
Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom.




UPDATE: Tonight, when I went to candle, I found it had pipped!!! I quickly moved it to the hatcher, and I can hear the little darling chirping! I will be

that he/she makes it after all it's been through.
So, in fact, the egg was on about day 21 and still had very visible veins around the top of the aircell. Im so glad I didnt toss it out with the others!

 

[Falcon61]

She could tell it wasnt going to happen...she has momma feeling in her butt... shes the momma...sorry

 

[Falcon61]

day 18 should be way past veins

 

[mothersin2ition]

Quote:
Im sorry for my naivety, but what do you mean? Im not very experienced with all this lol. I usually just let mama do her thing. The egg is pretty full of chick at this point, but you can still see veins at the top around the air cell.

 

[Falcon61]

(today was (I think) around day 18)............the chick would be moving around by then...the hen knew it...21 days to hatch....viens at a few days ...18 would be a solid dark chick.

 

[mothersin2ition]

hmmm okay. I could definitely be off on the day count, but I see your point.

 

[Akane]

I've seen veins in eggs on 18 days. For really dark eggs or quail eggs sometimes that's the only way you can tell anything is still alive since it's too dark to see movement. If you check around the edge of the air sac you can see the veins even when you can see nothing else. It may get harder to see but veining only completely disappears when the chick dies and the blood pools in to a blood ring. If you pop open an egg just as it starts to hatch you can see the veins still going across the membrane. The blood is not absorbed until the chick is ready to finish hatching. With my really dark brown eggs I'd count the number of eggs I could see the veins in before putting them in lock down and considered that the number of living chicks I likely had.

 

[mothersin2ition]

Thanks Akane, thats exactly what I was thinking. I went back and looked at the sticky thread about candling, and you can clearly see veining on day 18 in her pics. Im hoping this little guy survived, but Im sure now that the others died because they had no veining anymore. I havent candled or anything since yesterday, but I may have another look tonight and see if it's still alive.

 

[mothersin2ition]

Just wanted to update!!! If you look back at the original post, you can see what I found tonight

 

[GeeVee]

yay!