Eggtopsy: What happened to my egg? {Graphic Pictures}

[jandcclark5308]

I did my first eggtopsy tonight and am so confused I had a turkey egg completely developed and pipped internally but never got through the shell what would have caused this? I was doing dry incubation prior to lock down then went to 65% at lockdown. I've had 8 guinea hens hatch out of the same incubater but none of my turkeys made it 3 looked like they died prior to lockdown but that one was moving and apparently tried to get out. This is my second time trying to hatch turkeys and I still have none to show for it

the first try all 6 were full of blood rings before day 10!

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Sorry, that is frustrating. Fully grown and internally pipped usually means the chick was just too weak to hatch. Nothing you can really do for it. Blood ring usually means bacterial contamination, usually caused by dirty nesting material or dirty egg cartons for egg storage. Are these your eggs, local eggs, or shipped eggs?

 

[jandcclark5308]

Thanks so much for the info..... it was soooo frustrating!! The first turkey batch was local that I picked up but I didn't even get a single 1 into lockdown they all got blood rings and died the second time around they were shipped. This second time though I did get 8/12 shipped guinea hens to hatch that were in the same incubater as the turkeys so I dunno guess it's time to start hunting for eggs a 3rd time and try for atleast 1 of them to hatch!!

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Well I wouldn't give up yet. On second thought, I recall reading fully developed chicks that fail to hatch can also be vitamin deficiency in the parent stock. Again that is out of your control though if it's not your stock, but it could keep you from repeating the same mistake if it happens more than once from the same seller.

 

[EmmaJane88]

I finally plucked up the courage to open my egg that died at day 16. There were no nicked veins or anything that suggested bacterial contamination.

What could have happened?

 

[ShadyHoller]

troubleshooting: good pip, but then dead inside
Here's what I've got: turkey eggs pipping right on schedule, or a few hours early. Some of the poults hatched out with no problem, but three of them got a good pip, with the beak fully out of the hole, and then expired, as pictured below. As far as I can tell, humidity has been fairly constant. I did not measure humidity, but did keep an eye on the rate of the air sac development with regular candeling. This is the first time we've done turkeys in this incubator, but we've had good results with chickens in this same unit.

Any thoughts? Anyone seen this before? It's such a bummer to get them this close, only to have them die at the very last minute! Of course, I'm grateful for advice that could reduce this in the future. Also, apologies if this question has been asked before. If anyone knows of a thread that already covers this issue, please refer me to it. Thanks!



(edited to add more info)

 

[lonnyandrinda]

As far as I know, it means they just weren't strong enough to complete the hatch. I rarely have 3 in a batch though, maybe 1 every two or three hatches but I am hatching chicken eggs. I've never hatched turkey eggs. Hopefully someone else with more experience will weigh in.

 

[ShadyHoller]

Ok, an update and a renewed request for feedback. We had 18 eggs in the bator. When I posted that picture above, we were about 24 hours into the hatch, so some birds were fully out, some were just pipping, and others hadn't started yet.

We ended up with 9 birds hatched, three birds pipped and dead (like the picture) and another six birds that didn't pip at all. I knew all 18 eggs that had made it to lockdown had been viable at that point, because I had candled prior to lockdown and had previously culled clear eggs and early quitters. So I opened the remaining 6 unhatched eggs and found fully developed but dead poults.

In other words, 9 made it out, and 9 developed fully but didn't make it out. The internal membrane seemed pretty tough and leathery, but the eggs did not otherwise appear to be dry at all. If anything, they appeared wet.

So what could have made this happen? If the non-hatchers had been clear eggs, or had quit early, I wouldn't be distressed, but the fact that half of the clutch died at the very last minute bums me out. I really want to make adjustments to keep that from happening again.

Thanks to anyone how has dealt with something similar, or who might have advice on temp and humidity.

Oh - one other thing I observed. Many of the birds that did hatch successfully still had a little navel protrusion of yolk sac that hadn't fully absorbed. About the size of a pea. Does this combination of symptoms add up to anything?

 

[lonnyandrinda]

A few questions and thoughts.

Are these your own stock or hatching eggs you bought?

At first glance I would guess humidity was too high, but you said they seemed to have the proper air cell size. Did any of the poults hatch on the wrong end of the egg? Of the eggs you opened were any of them upside down in the egg? Did any of the unhatched eggs pip internally?

HOWEVER- your mention of the naval protrusion makes me think maybe an infection of the yolk sac, omphalitis. Look over this thread here, https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/mushy-chick-disease-yolk-sack-infection-omphalitis. This would explain all the symptoms and losses. There are some good tips for preventing it next time at the end of the article.

 

[EggieRowe]

So I had small hatch (three eggs, started with 5, 2 infertile) of polish eggs that was in with a group of duck eggs. Unfortunately duck eggs need a LOT more humidity than chicken eggs, and these three sort of got the short end of the stick when it came time to hatch. The thing about humidity is that it won't kill the chick early on, usually. It doesn't stop them or start them growing; but when it comes time to hatch, how the humidity went through the incubation can really determine whether the chick lives or dies around pip-time.

So here is our first egg:

This one was very tiny but well developed. The membranes were tougher than expected. This was the egg I marked as an early death (it stopped all movement internally before the others), but is clearly developed. I am uncertain why this one was different than the others.

And here is our 3rd egg:

This one was positioned incorrectly inside the egg, most likely due to the increased humidity in the bator making it hard for the chick to turn to get in position to pip the air cell. My best guess is that it drown in the last few days because it was unable to get to the air cell in time. This is also the egg which is in the video on the first post.


For the second egg, I actually took pictures as I took it apart and got some nice ones of things to look for if your humidity was too high.

This first picture shows the opaque outer membrane of the egg, which is not to be confused with the inner membrane. It is the inner membrane which would shrink wrap a chick as a result of a drop in humidity during hatch time. Sometimes this outer membrane can turn yellowish once the egg pips, as liquids drop onto it from inside the egg.

I gently broke through the top of the egg (where the air cell was located) to see if the chick had pipped internally or not. It had not pipped and I could not even see a beak, telling me that this one was positioned incorrectly. The lining itself looked all right; it was not too tough, had not turned milky or brown, and was not gummy. You can clearly see the difference in the white outer membrane and the clear, veined inner membrane here.

After ensuring that there was no internal pip, I moved to peeling away the shell to see if I could find the beak. I left the inner membrane intact, and without an air cell, it expanded to be egg shaped. Again, the two membranes are clear and distinctly different. You can see the dark eye and the yellow beak here, indicating that the chick was not positioned properly. Also, you can observe here that there is a LOT of liquid under the surface of the membrane. This is a heavy indication that the humidity was too high through incubation. unfortunately you can also see a smear of blood where the chick probably made its last stand against the egg shell, broke a vein, took a breath of liquid, and died

I then peeled away the inner membrane and gently pulled the chick out to get a closer look. Sure enough, the chick looked well developed but was still sporting an only partially absorbed yolk. This can indicate that it died around when it should have pipped internally.

So, there's my too-high-humidity hatch. Hopefully this will help someone determine when their own humidity was too high through a hatch.

How high was your humidity to get this result? I have dry hatched twice now, and both times this is what most of my fatalities have looked like. I was told to maintain normal humidity for my next hatch, but that seems wrong if my eggtopsies are coming out like this. My humidity first round was around 30%, dipping to low 20's before I would add more water. This time I kept it around the low 20's, adding water at 19%. I had more apparent drownings this time than I did last time! Both times the house humidity stayed in the 40-50% range. I put some eggs this last time under the broody as a control, but the one unhatched egg looked to have drowned too. (We have had a ridiculous amount of rain lately.) I don't know what to do next time!