Culled 1st egg at Day7...was I wrong?

[SunChick]

I candled my cuckoo marans eggs tonight and my largest whopper egg just didn't look right to me. The yolk and dark spot seemed to "slosh" back and forth and the slightest motion compared to the other eggs. The rest seemed to have dark shadows firmly in place at least. So I culled it, and broke it open. The yolk literally poured out of it along with a semi formed embryo head. I showed to it to DH who then told me I killed the chick. I don't think so...I figured it had stopped developing and didn't want a "bad egg" to explode in the bator. Would you have done the same or did I really kill the chick?

 

[Picco]

Your discription didn't sound right to me, its likely the embryo was doomed anyway so what you did was OK. It sounds like the yolk sack either broke or became detached from the shell; the little chord-membranes keeping the egg suspended may have broke.

 

[kstaven]

It does sound like the egg was doomed. Unusally small or large eggs normally are problematic.