Float test, egg pointing straight down? viable?

[als77]

I read in an article that said "checking viability of hatching eggs using the float test" that you can use it to check for the position it's in too, for example, if it sinks to the bottom it was either infertile or it died. There are also several youtube videos on using the float test and using the position to tell if it's alive or not, but maybe i'm wrong. And no i don't, i have an incubator for my duck egg and another incubator for my quail eggs

Disclaimer; I have not used float-testing myself, but...

It sounds bogus to me; A float-test would test the density of the egg, so unless a developing egg changes density besides air-loss, then the float-test actually only tests how much air an egg has lost (for eating-purposes this means the float-test is a rough estimate of age of the egg - rough because humidity plays a huge role here, not just age).

If an egg sinks to the bottom that would indicate that there is no air-pocket, or that the air-pocketi is small. Close to hatching-day the air-pocket is supposed to be small, so wouldn't that make them sink? And an egg with a larger air-pocket would float, but in both cases you could have a live chick.

Better to candle and post the pictures on this forum and have the experts (not me, I'm a noob) judge by them

 

[KenjiQuacker]

Disclaimer; I have not used float-testing myself, but...

It sounds bogus to me; A float-test would test the density of the egg, so unless a developing egg changes density besides air-loss, then the float-test actually only tests how much air an egg has lost (for eating-purposes this means the float-test is a rough estimate of age of the egg - rough because humidity plays a huge role here, not just age).

If an egg sinks to the bottom that would indicate that there is no air-pocket, or that the air-pocketi is small. Close to hatching-day the air-pocket is supposed to be small, so wouldn't that make them sink? And an egg with a larger air-pocket would float, but in both cases you could have a live chick.

Better to candle and post the pictures on this forum and have the experts (not me, I'm a noob) judge by them

actually i'm pretty sure the air sac grows bigger further into hatch, but thanks for the info! I won't use the float test anymore since I know it's unreliable now. I would've posted pictures but I found blood rings in all of them today besides the one that's pipping, so I threw them out.

 

[KenjiQuacker]

Hey guys, thanks for all the responses but I just found blood rings in all 4 eggs today, so I threw them out . Thanks for all the help though!

 

[cathalmire]

Hello, hope you're all having a good day!

I have 5 eggs in my homemade incubator right now, and one of them started pipping this morning. But the other four, i'm not sure if they're alive. So we had a power outage a couple days ago, and it was in the middle of the night so i was asleep and didn't wake up to put anything over the incubator to keep the heat in, and by the time i woke up it had been around 80-85 degrees fahrenheit for at least an hour. I candled them the next morning and all of them had stopped moving, and they haven't moved since day 12 (i candled them everyday from day 12 to 15, and yes, i understand that that probably wasn't good to candled them that much but i was really worried). so today, day 20 (i think? i kinda lost track...) I tried the float test. I didn't float the one that had pipped and i checked carefully for pips on all the other. The 4 that hadn't moved all floated with the pointy end straight down, like, directly down not even slightly at an angle. Does this mean their dead?

(edit) they're coturnix quail eggs, so they normally hatch on day 18.

have same problem with one egg i have in the incubator day 20 now float test stright down might have died but im going to check tomorrow, it was the one one iv incubated 12g egg