Day 17 can you help me with hatch smell question

[bobbieschicks]

My first time hatching eggs. I put 13 white leghorns in the Hovabator 1602N on 6-23-11 and had the temps at 100 per the instructions, humidity has been around 47%. They came in the mail and I let them set for 24 hours after they arrived. Today is day 17 in the bator and one of them has an odor. It's the one that is the smallest and is the dirtiest on the outside and today it smells kind of like manure. I've been reading the threads and everything says "you'll know when it's bad" - but HOW will I know? One poster said it didn't smell like sulfur - but maybe worse. So is manure a typical hatching smell? Why would 1 stink on Day 17 and the rest not stink? I candled it and even though it's a white Leghorn I'm having a hard time seeing much more then darkness inside at this point.

Tomorrow we go to lockdown so for now I've isolated it to the back of the incubator and everyone else is huddled up front, but I want to make sure I don't pull a "bad" egg that turns out to be a good egg hatching and I just didn't know the smell of a good hatch.

Thanks,
Bobbie

 

[NoseyChickens]

If it sinks take it out. It's not worth the risk. You could always candle it and see whats going on. But I'd definitely take it out now. The eggs should not smell foul.

 

[emvickrey]

If it smells, it's bad. If there was a chick inside you would have seen movement at least. If it burst you will have the worst smell to have to deal with.

Vary carefully, remove the smelly egg before it burst. It's rotten. If it burst in y our bator it will be a horrible mess to clean up. Have something very close by to put the egg in. You'll want to take it right outside.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Okay I candled it and couldn't see any movement just a black mass - so I took it outside in a small bathroom cup and broke it open. There was an even worse stink inside the shell and the chick was already dead - looked like it was at a Day 9 growth per our chart. So I followed the advice to pull it out and not risk the others that are not stinking. The #5 egg was marked as "good" when we candled on day 7, but by day 9 I had marked it questionable and continued with the questionable candling on Day 15. So we're now down to 11 out of 13 eggs

I'll candle the rest of them tonight as we will begin Day 18 lockdown tonight.

 

[floridachickhatcher]

oh yeah thats the worse smell in the world i had something like that happen with my last hatch i opened the bator for candling at night and when i picked up an egg oh god the smell hit me and it was sticky all on the bottom i dont know what happened but i quickly took it out and put it on the back porch since it was too dark to candle and then few days later a bad egg had cracked right in the middle and was leaking out i had to take all the eggs out a day early to clean the turner and bottom of the bator if it still smells then when you done you will want to put a cup of apple cider vinegar to draw it out