Embryo a quitter at the end??

[Shoudimae]

Hi all!
I had a hen go broody 3 weeks ago, she’s a fiesty one so I let her sit for a while before I tried to bother her too much in case she quit sitting on them. About a week ago I candled and got rid of the bad eggs, so it left us down to 4 eggs that looked like they were alive. Based off some photos on Google, it looked like they might have been at day 15+. If they were at day 15, by now they should have hatched. I’m wondering how common it is for eggs to quit in the end? I only candled the one time and haven’t moved them since. I have some live chicks from the feed store I was wanting to slip under her once the eggs hatched, so I’ve been waiting but now I don’t quite know what to do and want to know if it is common for eggs to quit in the last days. Is there a way I can tell this late if they are still alive or not?

thank you all!!!

 

[JustAChickenLoverOverHere]

Some eggs take up to day 25 to hatch. It is actually pretty common for embryos to quit in the end. I had one quit after externally pipping. They can pip on a blood vessel and bleed out, be malpositioned, just not strong enough, etc.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It is very common to have quitters, even under hens.
There can be a dozen reasons for this.

 

[Shoudimae]

Is there a way I can tell if they are still alive or not this late? Could it be bad to candle this late if they are possibly still good??

 

[Sierra G]

If you have live embryos that are viable this late they will be developed enough to have body heat. Candling shouldn't hurt, but it might be faster to just let the egg sit outside the incubator for a few minutes and see how fast it cools down. That's assuming you're incubating in a reasonably warm room.

A quitter will lose heat at a steady rate until it reaches room temperature. An egg generating heat will cool slower. If you can't tell just put a test egg in for a few hours and then remove it with your possible quitters. Your test egg egg won't have an embryo. If your unhatched egg cools at the same rate as the test egg then it doesn't either.