Cracked egg vs hatching egg

[lcheshire]

Is this a hatching egg or did momma hen break it? I didnt know whether to throw it away or let it be. It's only day 19.

 

[lcheshire]

I ended up taking it out of nest as I didnt want it exploding, I wasn't even sure if it was fertized. Turned out it was fertilized. Did I just kill a chick that was trying to hatch? Or was this just a cracked egg, and wouldn't have survived regardless?

 

[sdm111]

It would not explode. It has no pressure I can assure you

 

[sdm111]

Looks stepped on.

 

[Prince and Pavo]

Hello!

Unfortunately it looks like the chick may have been killed. Not necessarily your fault; it could have died shortly after being cracked. Do you know how long it had been like that?

I’m not sure if there was anything you could do anyway… it looked pretty destroyed and with another two days to go still… I don’t think it would have made it. I’m sorry

 

[Prince and Pavo]

It looks to me like another hen had laid an egg on top of it and then it got cracked even further after that.

I’ve noticed that the shell does not peel off of the membrane nearly as easily on a developing/nearly developed egg, so if there are pieces of the shell falling off with the membrane still intact, it’s likely that it had a chick inside. Just so you (and anyone else reading this thread) know for in the future

 

[lcheshire]

Looks stepped on.

I hope so. I feel awful if I killed my 1st hatching chick ever. So it would not have survived had I left it in the box, right?

 

[Prince and Pavo]

It’s unlikely, unless it was very close to hatching, and even then it’s still iffy. I don’t think there’s anything you could have done to save it, I’m sorry. For smaller cracks though, you can usually seal them with (unscented) candle wax (I usually use birthday candles). I even used another egg once to fix a developing one that had gotten cracked. Here’s the thread I started to share what happened…

Thread 'Broody Hatched Cracked Egg!'
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/broody-hatched-cracked-egg.1581162/

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

It looks like mama hen accidently crushed the egg and caused the membrane to dry out. At 19 days,the chick would not have absorbed its blood vessels yet, and would have bled out if you had tried to help it hatch from the crushed egg. This was an accident that was not the fault of you or your broody.

The other eggs should be hatching soon! How many eggs is your broody incubating?