emu egg marking

[fire pirate]

Odd question. How do you mark your eggs? Crayons? Chalk? Stickers? And why? Also em eggs are so dense and dark, how do you know there anything growing or if you got a quitter?

 

[yinepu]

I tag mine like this:




it's easy to remove in case there is no chick inside.. so I can still blow out the shells and carve them


As for knowing if there is a chick in there.. well.. you won't know until later on in the hatch (unless the egg goes smelly on you)

If there is a live chick eventually the egg will wiggle. But even a wiggle does not guarantee the egg will hatch.. it just means that at that moment.. there is a live chick inside
The reason why i say "eventually" is because some chicks start to wiggle on day 31.. some you won't catch it until later on.. plus a lower incubation temp will also push the date of wiggle back a bit. The chicks won't wiggle on command.. some days you won't see it at all because the chick is sleeping..

Once the chick pips internally it can whistle back to you when you talk to it



Basically it's just a waiting game.. wait for the egg to stink, ooze.. or wiggle... and if it hasnt done any of those by the hatch date.. it's probably either scrambled or infertile.. or an early quitter. The only way to know for sure if it's one of those last three is to break the shell.. with a hammer.. or by drilling through the shell after hatch date has come and gone..