Eggtopsy: Embryo but no veins or blood ring

[PippinChicken]

I've had some eggs from my neighbor in my incubator to get all the temp and humidity settings worked out before doing my own hatch. Today I was finally satisfied with the settings, took out the eggs, and turned off the incubator. I candled the eggs out of curiosity and saw something I'd never seen before.

First, all the disclaimers: I had no intention of hatching these eggs, they were just there to work out the incubator quirks without it being empty. Because of this, I broke loads of incubation rules: I didn't sanitize the incubator, I didn't wash my hands before handling them, and I wasn't extra gentle with them. They experienced some major swings in humidity as I worked out how much water the incubator needed. Also since they were from a neighbor's flock, I can't say anything about her hens' nutrition or fertility rate.

But onto the egg...all but one was clear. The one that looked different had a much larger shadowy yolk area than the others but it looked sort of split. Like it wasn't actually in two, but its shape was more like a heart than a circle. There was a little dark fleck visible but no veins, no blood ring, and no movement. Out of curiosity, I cracked it open before tossing it. There was definitely some built up pressure in there (glad I avoided an explosion), and what looked like a day 4 or so embryo...and no veins. Nothing at all.

I know there were a million things that could have made it go wrong, but I thought it was so weird for there to be an embryo and no veins. Is this common in early quitters? Is there something specific that causes it?

 

[goatmezchicks]

I cracked open a few early quitters and I don't recall seeing much blood vein either..my kids called one "the eyeball egg" it was mostly thin yellow goo and an embryo, only a tiny bit of blood on the embryo..maybe it depends how long ago it quit