infertile in the incubator

[alwayslovely14]

I have ten duck eggs in my incubator and it looks like there a about 5 infertile and one possible early death. It is day 12 and i was wondering if i should take out the eggs that havnt already started to develop

 

[Ridgerunner]

It depends on how much you trust your candling and what you hope to gain by taking them out. I don’t hatch ducks, but they take longer than chickens. I’m not sure at what rate they develop and what you should be seeing.

I do know that with my colored and darker chicken eggs it can be hard to see inside at all at any stage. Even when I can see inside, I hardly ever take them out at 7 days when I first candle unless there is a very clear blood ring. I just don’t see a need to. I just mark them with an x, check, or question mark. I do take out the obviously bad ones when I go into lockdown.

The danger is that an egg could explode or leak a real stinky mess if bacteria get inside and multiply. Whether it is fertile or not has nothing to do with that. I always clean my incubator well between hatches, only set clean eggs, and keep my hands fairly clean and dry when I handle the eggs, so it’s not been a big problem. If you’ve ever smelled a rotten egg you understand how bad it could be so I don’t take it real lightly. I rely on sniffing the eggs when I add water or candle.

If you trust your candling, there is no real reason to leave them in. On the other hand, there is very little risk in leaving them in. I don’t see this as having a right answer or a wrong answer, but pretty much personal preference. But if you smell anything off, sniff each egg individually to check them out. You can usually identify the culprit pretty easily.

 

[sumi]

I nearly got caught out by some hatching eggs recently. I candled them on day 7 and they were as clear as water, no sign of veins, embryo, nothing and I looked at them from every angle. I left them under the broody hen and candled again on day 10. Same thing, no veins, nothing. A little disappointed, I left them under the broody to keep her occupied while I started looking for an alternative arrangement for her. On day 14/15 I decided to candle again just for the heck of it and saw a cloudy, dark mass in the eggs, no veins though. The eggs didn't smell off. (On hindsight I wish I'd taken candling pics then). On day 17 I decided to candle again and see what the "masses" got up to and saw it grew quite a bit. Still no veins to be seen in any of the eggs. Again, I left it under the hen. Two days later 3 of the eggs started hatching and the last egg hatched the day after. The chicks are healthy and happy.

At first I thought the light I used for candling may be too blame, it wasn't ideal, but it's all I have. But when I candled some eggs in the incubator a few days ago (day 7 for the eggs) with the same light, I could clearly see veins, the embryos everything. Both sets of eggs has/had pale shells and the shells from the surprise hatch were not thicker than normal. Neither batches of eggs were shipped and both batches were fresh and locally obtained. Why I couldn't see the development is a mystery, but I will remember this in future and not rely 100% on what I can (or can't) see when candling. Unless the eggs shows good signs of being off, or a blood ring or smells rotten, I will give them the benefit of the doubt. You just never know.

Fingers crossed your eggs will be "surprise" eggs too.

ETA: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/304863/duck-egg-candling-photo-diary