Is this normal?

Ariel301

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I have been working on hatching some turkeys and haven't been successful yet in getting any live poults. I have noticed one thing with candling them that I am wondering if it is normal or not? The last two batches that went in--one in an incubator and another under a broody hen--I managed to completely forget when I put them in and when they were due, so I have been candling them pretty often to try to figure out when to expect them. I have noticed both times that as they get really close to hatching time that the air cell seems to...not sure how exactly to describe it and can't get a good picture...but it is like it goes sort of sideways instead of being right at the round end of the egg. So, as I candle, I can see through it on one side, but if I turn the egg over, the air cell seems to disappear, like it is only on one side of the egg, and it is dark on the other side. I noticed this with the last bunch, and they never pipped, so I opened them to find live poults that ended up dying a couple of days later. When I first saw this, I thought it was that the poult was in the air cell, but when I opened the eggs, they had not pipped internally at all. Is this normal, for the air cell to look that way? The eggs weren't shipped, so it's not damage to them from that.
 
It is normal. As the egg reaches the end of the incubation peroid- The amount of moisture lost and the position of the chick in the egg can make the air cell look like that. I just had a duckling hatch yesterday- I wasnt sure if it was going to make it as the air cell when I put it in the hatcher for lock down looked as if it was on the top of the egg- almost all the way down to the small end of the egg. As this one hatched I could see form its possition why the airsac looked different as it was wrongly positioned in the egg.
There is a good diagram on this site that shows approximately what the air cell should look like at different stages of incubation.

http://www.google.com.au/imgres?img...es?q=egg+air+cell&hl=en&sa=G&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1
 
The air cell is at the pointy end right? You do know that turkey eggs take 28 days to hatch right? I thought the air cell was not to move or it had a broken membrane and would not live or be deformed anyways?
 
The air cell is at the round end. Yes, turkey eggs take longer than chicken eggs. We actually have one halfway through hatching today!
 

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