Is it alive or dead?

[tunedin5ths]

I put a couple of duck eggs in my incubator on the same day. One hatched a cute little mallard 3 days ago. The other egg I'm thinking may have died. I have a couple of pictures:



At the top of the 2nd picture, there is a dark protrusion into the air space that looks like it was maybe starting to internally pip, but I haven't seen any change in a couple of days, and haven't really noticed any movement either. I'm new to incubation, so I don't really have experience to know whether to keep it going a couple days longer, or if I should toss it.

Anybody have any ideas?

 

[Kelly713]

In my opinion let it have a bit more time. Do you know that the eggs are the same breed because some go longer than other like Muscovys take 35 days and mallards around 29. What is it going to hurt if you let it have a few more days to do its thing? If it doesn't hatch then you really aren't out anything.

 

[QuackerJackFarms]

I agree with Kelly, but if I were to place a bet.. it wouldn't be a positive outcome.

BTW: Welcome to BYC you guys.

 

[mandelyn]

Doesn't look good... you should still see some veining up in that yellow/orange area. I would carefully chip the top off where the air cell is and see what's happening, with coloring like that when candling.

If it's still alive, have some warm water ready to moisten the membrane, if blood starts coming out from a torn membrane, stop and wait another couple of hours. Bump the humidity and monitor.

Usually though, it's not a good sign when you can't see defined veins anymore. Even that late into incubation, you can see the veining easier than movement.

I had one in the last batch, looked promising so I left it and watched it. Turns out, it had chipped it's egg tooth off and was unable to proceed with pipping, missing it's tool to do so. I was way too late in helping it. It had internally pipped, but then got stuck.

It's hard to know hat affected the hatch when some make it and some don't, a lot of different variables.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

If you see absolutely NO movement, and it has been 2-3 days past the other hatching I would say its dead. No need to keep it in the bator at that point so you don't end up with a rotten egg to deal with.

 

[farmerChef]

poke a hole in the top of the egg (aircell end) and see if the chick is still alive.

 

[Mum]

Any update?

 

[tunedin5ths]

I did what farmerChef suggested and cut a hole in the top of the egg to see what was going on. It was dead. Looks like it died just before internal pip, not sure why, but I could guess that it got moved around too much right about that time. I had a goose that hatched a few days before the duck eggs were due, and didn't move him to the brooder as quickly as i might have otherwise, because he was having some trouble standing and walking. I'm sure he bumped and jostled the duck eggs some.

 

[Ilovemyduckies]

Try candling from the bottom. I've found that when the ducklings get bigger, it is easier to see movement from there.

 

[farmerChef]

Could you tell if it had absorded its yolk yet? I usually open my eggs before I toss them just to make sure I don't have a late hatcher, or to see if I can tell why it didn't hatch.