Duck drowned hatching egg?

[Sheepheart]

When closing up the coop for the night I discovered an egg in the run of one of my sitting Muscovy ducks. When I pulled it out it was one of her eggs and it was in the process of hatching. I have not looked further into the condition of the duckling to see if it had an obvious reason for her to removing it from her nest in the coop and to put it in her pool to drown.

Some of our chicken do fly in to steal her food but if they come anywhere near her eggs she does not hesitate to attack them, so I’m doubtful that another bird did this.

Anyone have any experience with this happening? This would have been the first duckling of my hatching season and her very first duckling to hatch out.

I’m attaching a photo, it’s not horrible but it’s not pleasant.
Other than where the duckling was hatching out, there is a break/indent that resembles a duck beak, and one side of the egg is very red under the shell.

I’m not sure if this is what caused her to take the egg out or if it was caused by her.

At this time I’m going to hold off on opening the egg further. I will likely do this in the morning unless someone suggests otherwise.

 

[nuthatched]

I don't think she did it on purpose. Any chance it could have gotten stuck to her as she went to take a dip?

 

[Sheepheart]

Very unlikely. If it were somehow stuck to her it would have been knocked off when she left the nesting box or the coop. Both have decent ledges.


My other Muscovy lady had a duckling hatch that was removed from the nest this morning. This one didn’t have a pool close by, so the duckling opened the egg further. I think it’s yolk sac a retained. I’m going to guess that was the other ones problem to.