is a cold egg a dead egg?

[aubreynoramarie]

broody mom quit her eggs sometime during the night. they are ice cold. are they dead? i put em in the bator just in case...

 

[minihorse927]

They may still be alive yet, I have had a hen leave her nest and they were ice cold and yet all but one survived it. Candle them, look for movement.

 

[RavenStorm]

I had a broody duck give up on her nest about halfway through incubation in the dead of winter. I didn't know it until 8 in the morning, but my DBF said he saw her leave the nest the night before. I rushed out and popped them in the incubator just on a hope, and 7 of them continued to develop. We had incubator problems though, so in the end only three made it to fully developed but then none of them survived hatching. I'm pretty sure that was all my fault with the incubator problems though, not the broody hen abandoning her nest.

 

[pgpoultry]

Hubby accidentally removed the incubator lead on day 6 and it was over 14 hours before I realised.
Room temperature about 50 overnight, eggs felt VERY cold.
Turned the incubator back on with not a lot of hope.
Candled the eggs two days later to find at least at least 4 of the 8 still have life.