Eggs cracking inside the incubator?

[BellaTweety]

I have looked around the web to see if this has happened to anyone else but I came up with nothing. My eggs are randomly cracking in the incubator. One I think is developing an embryo, but the top part where the air cell is, is cracked quite a bit. I'm not positive it is developing though because the egg is quite dark. They are far from their hatching date so it is definitely not pipping of any sort. This happened to some of my other eggs too. I put some nail polish over the cracks to prevent it from drying. Do you think it is a rotten egg or something else?

 

[wynn4578]

Are they dark as in you can't see through them also what day are they on.

 

[Pyxis]

It sounds very much like it could be a rotten egg. I wouldn't leave it in there because it's liable to explode. The cracking is caused by gases building up inside it as it rots. Give it a sniff; you can smell a bad egg.

Can you not see in any of them that are doing this? I'd be concerned if a lot of your eggs are having this happen. Can you tell us how old the eggs are before you started incubating and what day of incubation you're on? Also what your temp and humidity is and whether you calibrated your instruments to make sure they are reading correctly?

 

[chickens really]

Smell it.....Rotten egg...

 

[BellaTweety]

It sounds very much like it could be a rotten egg. I wouldn't leave it in there because it's liable to explode. The cracking is caused by gases building up inside it as it rots. Give it a sniff; you can smell a bad egg.

Can you not see in any of them that are doing this? I'd be concerned if a lot of your eggs are having this happen. Can you tell us how old the eggs are before you started incubating and what day of incubation you're on? Also what your temp and humidity is and whether you calibrated your instruments to make sure they are reading correctly?

I'll send pictures of the egg being candled soon...
I think I can see veins but I'm not sure if it's just the shell. The eggs were only a day or two old when I put them in. We are on day 7 now. All the other eggs are developing properly and have embryos. One of the cracked eggs I candled again and found it was infertile but I'll check this other one again. Temp is 40-45 but I'll be lowering it to 30 because the air cells are a tad too small. Temp is pretty stable and never goes past 98.8 or over 101 which is rarely and only for a few seconds. It normally hovers around 99.5 to 99.9. I used several high quality temperature readers to check accuracy and they are almost identical to eachother. I am using a forced air incubator. I'll give this egg a sniff and candling real quick

 

[Mountainbeauty]

If they are cracking at random with no pithing no beak showing its rotten. it will smell you need to clean out the incubator. never help a chick out of the egg unless its been over 30 hours it takes time of a chick to hatch. the cracked eggs remove right away there should be some discolored nasty juice coming from it as well. I just went though the same thing.

 

[BellaTweety]

If they are cracking at random with no pithing no beak showing its rotten. it will smell you need to clean out the incubator. never help a chick out of the egg unless its been over 30 hours it takes time of a chick to hatch. the cracked eggs remove right away there should be some discolored nasty juice coming from it as well. I just went though the same thing.

I just finished candling and sniffing the egg and there seems to be no distinct or bad smell. I think there are veins? It's hard to see through the nail polish that I applied to the cracks. It is an extra egg my supplier gave me so it's in a smaller carton farther from the light. I'll send a pic


It's the egg in the very back corner

 

[Farmgal101]

I would wait all the days. if it does not hatch throw it away

 

[BellaTweety]

I would wait all the days. if it does not hatch throw it away

Yeah. I think that's what I'll do. I'll make sure to keep checking it for signs of rotting and will post updates at hatch! Fingers and toes crossed

 

[Farmgal101]

Yeah. I think that's what I'll do. I'll make sure to keep checking it for signs of rotting and will post updates at hatch! Fingers and toes crossed

goodluck