Broken egg in broody nest

[wild chick]

I have an experienced Wyandotte broody (2 previous clutches) and decided to let her hatch some eggs. She's in the broody pen with her own nest and been on the eggs exactly one week, no other chickens can get in. I have not been making her get up to check eggs, but today saw the eggs and there were only 8 eggs instead of 9. A closer look and I could see yolk smears on almost all of them. Evidently one broke and she cleaned up the mess - no pieces of shell anywhere. I looked at old threads on this and it seems to be 50/50 clean or leave them alone. The threads I found on this topic are many years old, wondering if there are any new thoughts? I don't know if this happened yesterday or 3 or 4 days ago. Also, no experience candling - at what date would I be able to tell if the eggs were still viable? Thanks in advance!

 

[Livia Stouffer]

If she's been on them a week, you should be able to see some veins!
I'm not sure how you could go about cleaning them without disturbing the eggs, but I could be wrong, I've never had to do that before.

 

[wild chick]

thanks for the reply - I'll look for threads on candling. I'm pretty much nature-take-its-course kinda person, and these chicks are purely for fun, no breeding program, mixed flock etc. I'll keep pullets for laying and cockerels will go to the freezer. But Gretchen is the most wonderful mother and I had to break her broodiness 3 x last summer, and was sad that this year that I decided to let her hatch a clutch then she never went broody. It seemed like she was broken forever until finally she did, now this.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Personally i don't clean. They should groom themselves enough to not be in any danger