Anyone Setting Eggs Tonight 3/31/2011 - Come join me if you like!

[artathart]

I murdered a fetus :-(

So I candled again tonight and I have so many eggs with no visable development. I also have a bunch of eggs where if you tilt it to one side or the other, the whole yolk moves freely. So tonight....I decided to take one of those eggs and break it open to see what was inside and I feel terrible. What you are about to see may or may not be graphic. This is day 6.

Day 6. Only egg with signs of life

This is the Welsummer egg that had a yolk that just moved around lose and freely.

Here is where it is going to get graphic so please don't look if you will be offended. I am sure this has happened to others. When I cracked the egg open, this is what I found...

I am not able to tell if this is the way it should look developed at 6 days or it it stoped developing. Maybe you could share some insight? I did not see a Eye in this brown area either.



So did I murder a potential baby chick? I feel horrible. I am never touching those eggs again!

 

[MikeS(erama)]

Well, now we have chicken egg biology class. Example A presented by petunia: classic case of scrambled yolk caused by rough shipping. Example B presented by artathart: what looks to be healthy veining and embryo development. Embryo would be attached to the yolk by umbilical cord and the veins you see would be around the inside of the shell so that it could take in oxygen through the shell wall.

 

[artathart]

MikeS(erama) :

Well, now we have chicken egg biology class. Example A presented by petunia: classic case of scrambled yolk caused by rough shipping. Example B presented by artathart: what looks to be healthy veining and embryo development. Embryo would be attached to the yolk by umbilical cord and the veins you see would be around the inside of the shell so that it could take in oxygen through the shell wall.

I feel just horrible

I was told that if the yolk moved around freely like that, likely scrambled. I saw no development either. I hate myself. Never touching those eggs again.​

 

[petunias212]

I'm sorry. I'm figuring this is a learning experience in a lot of ways for those of us not familiar with farm life. Pretty sure you are not the first nor the last person to do that....

Quote:
I feel just horrible

I was told that if the yolk moved around freely like that, likely scrambled. I saw no development either. I hate myself. Never touching those eggs again.

 

[petunias212]

too funny MikeS(erama)! good thing we have great and patient teachers like you to help us nervous first timers out!

MikeS(erama) :

Well, now we have chicken egg biology class. Example A presented by petunia: classic case of scrambled yolk caused by rough shipping. Example B presented by artathart: what looks to be healthy veining and embryo development. Embryo would be attached to the yolk by umbilical cord and the veins you see would be around the inside of the shell so that it could take in oxygen through the shell wall.​

 

[petunias212]

Ok so after throwing myself a pity party my hubby was like...don't pull the plug on the bator until we get someone who knows what they're seeing...this from a man that didn't want me to get chickens in the first place, he thought it would be too many problems since we live in the city...

So we got his aunt who grew up on a farm and she took a look at my eggs...she felt their weight in her hand - then she showed me a trick...have you heard of this?

she put the flashlight to the egg close to the wall (we were in the bathroom)...she said you take a look at the light on the wall and if it flickers, that means it's a good egg - have you ever heard of that??

maybe i just don't see it because the egg contents look runny to me, she said some eggs will do that at first before they firm up on one side of the egg...but she showed me the flickering - i think the flickering is coming from the runny egg reflection but she said the eggs feel heavy too, not like a regular egg...

anyway, i'm going to keep the eggs until Sunday - but if they're runny and look like that egg i cracked open, i don't want to keep it any longer than i have to for fear of getting one of those stinky eggs...

i'm hoping my husband's aunt knows what she's talking about since she lived on a farm practically all her life but day 10 should really show some sort of life, if not, then out the bator they go...

 

[artathart]

Quote:
Seriously....Let me egg situation be a lession to you. I have several eggs that just seem watery and where the yolk looks devided and slides all over the place. This was one of those eggs that I thought for sure was a scrambled egg. As you can now see.....I was completely wrong. Wait till day 10. I dont think you will have any stinky eggs. I am not touching any more of my eggs until day 10-14 because I am so ashamed of what I did. My egg was just like yours and there is a chance that you do have a couple of good eggs. WOuldnt you just hate to toss a good egg? Did you try to crack any more open? I think I am going to get a new flashlight at lowes when I do candle again so I can see better into my Maran and Welsummer eggs.

 

[MountainChickenMama]

Don't beat yourself up artathart, this is a learning experience and sometimes you have to actually see what is going on to understand it. Keep your chin up

 

[RachaelS]

Okay, from my first batch I can say, I left two eggs in that were infertile until day 14 and they never blew up or got stinky, finally I just threw them away. So don’t worry about that. The dark shell eggs are REALLY hard to see through. So don’t beat yourself up over that. With my last set, I killed 7 fully developed ready to hatch chicks by letting the humidity spike WAY to high and not bringing it down. First timers make mistakes. I buried them because I could not bring myself to just throw them out.

 

[MikeS(erama)]

Lol it isn't just the first timers that make mistakes. I once thought all my eggs were done hatching and I usually preform eggtopsies on any egg that didn't hatch to see if it was an early quitter that I just saw wrong when candling, or if it was a deformity, or what not. I was doing this with silkie eggs, and found one that was still alive, it was just a day or so behind the others, and I ended up killing it. With incubating, everything is very trial and error, and learning from mistakes.