Depressed, found egg half crushed, chick still moving. Too early tho'

[weesy68]

This morning I found an egg my silkie is hatching half crushed, and bloody. The chick was moving all day, and at first I wasn't sure if it was hatching and struggling to get out, hence the crushed looking shell. It has since died (took all day :-( ) and when I investigated the egg, the chick was not fully formed, maybe four or five days away from hatching. How could this have happened? The only thing I can think is that the silkie broke the egg herself, it looked dropped. Have you ever experienced a hen sabotaging an egg this way? It's not her eggs, she's been broody for months and I finally got her fertile eggs to hatch. I'm so freaking sad, that's four now we've lost out of seven, the other eggs were bad, there were no embryos just smelly yolks. We've had one chick hatch successfully so far, by another silkie, the momma who was on the crushed egg is sitting on the last two.

 

[cluckcluck42]

I am so sorry, that is pretty traumatic. I have no idea but I dont think the hen would have intentionally done that, sounds like a terrible accident. I hope her other two eggs hatch. Hugs to you, it must have been hard to see that.

 

[brendapa]

It sounds as if you have more than 1 broody hen in a pen. They tend to steal eggs back and forth and in the process egss get cracked, dropped and left out in the cold.
Separate them for a more successful hatch. I've seen one of my silkies roll an egg under her chin and try to carry it, dropping it ono the clutch she was sitting on.
They are very posessive about eggs.
I'm sure the broken one was an accident.
Good luck with the last 2!

Brenda