This is day 11 of my first hatch. I had 18eggs in the incubator with an automatic turner. This afternoon I noticed a funny smell. After investigating, I found one egg that cracked and "oozed" from the tiny end down into the bottom of the incubator a little bit (just some of the white part). It got onto one egg next to it as well. I removed both eggs and opened them to investigate. Anyways, these are shipped eggs and it appears that one was not fertile at all and that the other was fertile, but never grew (there must have been shipping problems since are 2 winners next to it on the other two sides)...But it has left me with some questions that I am hoping some of the very knowledgable and seasoned hatchers on BackYard Chickens can help me answer: 1. Should I be trying to clean this out or let it just dry up? It is difficult to reach it all to clean it (homemade incubator...) and I would need to remove the eggs for a couple minutes to do it. I have removed the two eggs that it touched. 2. Is the smell released by a bad egg toxic to the chicks still developing in the incubator and if so, what can I do to help them? 2. Will it be a problem if the egg happened to fall into a water container used for humidity? Should I make other arrangements for humidity other than using that container or is it okay to fill this with water in 7 more days?? My incubator is a homemade incubator...it is a thick styrafoam box with rocks, lights and two water dishes in the bottom. Currently, I have one water dish full, but the egg "mess" dripped a little into the 2nd water dish that I was planning to use for the necessary increase in humidity during lockdown. I can however put other water dishes into the incubator if necessary to bring raise the humidity, but it would be easier to use my pretested dish... Can you tell I'm a nervous first time hatcher? Thank you very much in advance for your help!
