bloodring question

[karmlacres]

I'd like to know if what I'm seeing are bloodrings or not and maybe learn how they occur.

Here's my situation... I had a pair of ducks. My duck hen started laying eggs 6-8 weeks or so ago. Recently, she decided to start sitting on them - she had shown no interest in the eggs up to this point in time. So, she had 3 eggs in her cute, snug little nest. We were keeping her, the drake and a rooster out on the farm and we have been getting a lot of rain. It's very difficult to get to the birds with the rain/mud so it had been 2-3 days since we last checked on the birds. We went out one night once the rain subsided to find a hole in the pen, the rooster dead and drug halfway out of the pen and the ducks missing (eggs still in the nest). Checked area ponds, no ducks

I went ahead and took the eggs since I had just set chick eggs in the incubator. Tonight marks 10 days for the chicks, so I was candling them along with the duck eggs. I see what I think is a blood ring. There is definite red circle. I can see that the ducks were forming. I'm suspecting they have died

I have them back in the incubator, but is there any hope for them? Or is that red ring a telltale sign that they are gone?

What causes the blood rings? In this case, I don't know how long the duck hen had been missing, so I don't know how long the eggs were left exposed (yet in the chicken coop). Not to mention we were on our way out to eat, so the eggs traveled with us to the restaurant and back before being set in the incubator.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

A red ring is a tell tale for a quitter. Sorry for your losses!!

Here are some links to photos of blood rings, to be sure this is what you are seeing:

http://lancaster.unl.edu/4h/Images/Embryology/images/Candling2002/April_8Quit.jpg

http://www.pamperedpeeps.com/eggbloodring.jpg

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/34566_blood_ring_1_of_1.jpg

 

[Alexander]

Sorry man

What you can do though is leave it 3-4 days in the incubator and then candle again and if you dont see any progress then open them up and see what happened.

 

[karmlacres]

Well, poo! That is what I'm seeing

I was hoping to get some new ducklings since the adults have flown the coop. I kind of hoped they'd return - momma duck coming back to her babies. I was going to leave the coop door open to make it easier for her to back to her nest, but without us there to shut it behind her I knew she wouldn't be safe. She may not have remembered how to get back to the hole she escaped from. <sigh> I do have one duckling from them. I suspect it's a male. We've been calling him "Chuck". He looks like a duck, but sounds like a chicken. Going on 10 weeks old and still doesn't quack - I don't know when they learn to quack. I incubated him with chickens so we joke he's confused. LOL