Cracked open egg Day 23- Chick Inside :(

[tmlpike]

My hen has been laying on her 5 eggs for a while. On day 21, she had 4 eggs hatch, but one of them died. She stopped laying on the other egg for a few days now. Flies were all over the egg, and it was cold! I thought that it was rotten, so when I went to bury the egg, I cracked it open. There was a chick in it that looked pretty much developed, except for it's eyes, and it had some yolk outside. It wasn't moving at all, or making any sounds. Was I the cause of the death? The egg was cold. I was just wondering if I left it for a few more days, would it have hatched? I feel horrible right now

 

[bobbi-j]

No, if the hen had been off the egg for a couple of days and it was cold and covered with flies, it was already dead when you cracked it open. It's possible that it was dead before she abandoned it. Hens seem to know when their eggs won't hatch. Sometimes they'll kick them out of the nest early, or eat them, or just plain leave the nest.

 

[tmlpike]

Thank you so much. Even though I'm still sad that the little one didn't make it, I feel a bit better now. Thanks This morning, she actually did move the egg out of the nest into a different location, but she still laid on it for a bit.

 

[farmer boy]

my hen was dumb lol she had eggs that were still developing and she got up and left them one i had to help hatch and there were 2 others that hatched out in the end all of the chicks died the ones i was raising inside that i helped when the hen left the nest one had a hernia then it died and then there was one it thought i was momma and when i brought it outside it followed me every where and peeped if i went to far .. one day we were outside and i was trying to get it to follow me but it wanted to play i thought it would be fine 1 min later a wild bird got it so there were 2 chicks left one with the hen and a hen killed one chick and the other one just died last month something got it