Is it possible to hatch from egg with broken aircell? UPDATE

[cici_p]

Ok, here is my little "miracle child" that according to most people never should have developed:

This is the one that had an oozing crack, a detached air cell, *and* a floating air bubble in the egg.
He made it out all on his own, absolutely no help.
Funny thing is, he was one of only two of my runner eggs to make it. . . I had two others that made it full term but didn't get out. And many of them had eggs that looked fine originally when candling.
So again, you just never know.

 

[melissastraka]

oh he needs a friend.....

 

[dancingbear]

I have a 'bator full of eggs w/damaged air cells. Some the membrane ruptured, some it sort of splattered the air cell, so you see sort of an amoeba shape when you candle it. 21 of them. Some also had crack, some oozing, patched w/birthday candle wax.

I candled on night 6, there were live embryos visible in 7 of the 10 I looked at. I'm gonna candle the whole bunch tonight, and see what they look like.

This thread is so great, I'm feeling much more optimistic about getting some chicks out of this batch. They're Buckeyes and Salmon Faverolles, both from Gatekeeper. He has such beautiful birds, I really want these babies! They were packed well, but got tossed a lot in shipping, I guess.

 

[ryple]

just 4 or 5 more days.. I'll figure out how to post pictures if I have any luck!

Thanks for the inspiration. I had no idea you could set a cracked oozing egg!

A Xenon flashlight has recently proved to be an awesome candling device. My silkies are still thrashing around inside their shell. I hear they hatch at 25 days, so, soon and very soon!

One of their air cells is taking up almost half of the inside of the shell!

 

[MrsChicken1954]

I'm desparate to hear the end of these hatching tales! I was lucky to source some Croad Langshan eggs by post last week and some of the air cells are broken. I found this post on google and it has given me some hope of hatching these precious babies. My incubator is an RCOM20, so they are lying on their sides. Will that be OK do you think?

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
Um.....chickens normally hatch at 21 days. But I read that eggs with damaged air cells can be delayed a little.

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
The consensus seems to be that eggs with damaged air cells need to be kept upright, and it makes sense to me. It would keep the air cell in the big end where it belongs.

Can you put an egg carton bottom in the 'bator, to set them in? If you do, use a foam carton, not a cardboard one. Most people cut some small holes or slits in the carton cups for better air flow.

 

[MrsChicken1954]

Thanks for your reply. I was intending to put the damaged ones upright for the last three days, but can't do it before then because I would need to turn them manually and I have to go to work. The RCOM20 has a plate which moves under eggs laid on their sides to turn them. It's quite hard to find 'styrofoam' egg boxes in England as most of ours are cardboard, but I have a plastic egg tray from an old fridge which I could use to keep them upright during the hatching phase when egg turning has stopped. I candled them at 6 days and I think they have embryos in them, though the shells are thick and dark. I also have a couple with cracks in and have nail-varnished over those to seal them. Is it essential to have them big-end upward for the first 18 days then?

 

[ryple]

Quote:
Um.....chickens normally hatch at 21 days. But I read that eggs with damaged air cells can be delayed a little.

Sorry, didn't I mention that these were silky duck eggs?

 

[walkswithdog]

Best of luck. I've actually had pretty good success with a lot of eggs "that shouldn't have hatched". Since I'll work with anything that doesn't seem about to explode.

Really often nature just decides that the wee buggers will hatch anyway, and you only know that if you try.