It wasn’t a death ring 😢

[Anne-Marie S]

The one I thought was a death ring. It was still alive. The video is only 11 seconds and shows the heart beating. Today was its 5th day in the incubator.

I guess we live and learn . I will be leaving possible deaths in for a few days going forward.

I thought this might help others learn so I uploaded it

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Usually a death ring will be all the way around an eggs equator

 

[Anne-Marie S]

Yeah, I’ve seen a few of those. Whenever I’ve had an unfertilised egg though it’s always had a ring like in the pic.

I’ve got two hens sharing a box, one laying fertilised eggs, the other not. Eggs from both girls are near impossible to tell apart so I’ve put a few unfertilised eggs in. I’ll wait ‘til day 10 before sorting what’s what now I think.

 

[BelovedBirds]

The one I thought was a death ring. It was still alive. The video is only 11 seconds and shows the heart beating. Today was its 5th day in the incubator.

I guess we live and learn . I will be leaving possible deaths in for a few days going forward.

I thought this might help others learn so I uploaded itView attachment 3139153

this is a blood island, start of life- blood rings dont look like this

 

[BelovedBirds]

Yeah, I’ve seen a few of those. Whenever I’ve had an unfertilised egg though it’s always had a ring like in the pic.

I’ve got two hens sharing a box, one laying fertilised eggs, the other not. Eggs from both girls are near impossible to tell apart so I’ve put a few unfertilised eggs in. I’ll wait ‘til day 10 before sorting what’s what now I think.

the ring is a sign of early life, unfertilised eggs wont have these

 

[Anne-Marie S]

Hi BelovedBirds. Thank you so much for clearing that up for me. That’s really helpful and I appreciate it.

There are unfertilised eggs in the bator as well because I can’t tell the difference between Gladys’ fertilised eggs from Buffy’s unfertilised eggs, even when candled the spots, shape and colour are the same for both hens. They both use the same nesting box.

Both are kept in a separate coop and run to the two roos I have, but I let Gladys and one of the roos share a run for a couple of days, so I know that Gladys is the only one laying fertilised eggs.

At day 5 I can see the veins and spider shape in Gladys’ eggs when candled, but Buffy’s unfertilised eggs just show the ring and nothing in the middle (see candled egg in pic attached). When cracked they look like the other pic attached. That’s why I thought the egg I posted in the thread was not viable until I cracked it open and saw the heart beating.

I hope that clears up my reasoning. Your reply is really helpful and I appreciate it, thank you.

Btw, your duck is just sooo cute

 

[Anne-Marie S]

the ring is a sign of early life, unfertilised eggs wont have these

Oh, I forgot to mention, the yolk in Buffy’s eggs are faster to float around than Gladys’ eggs, they don’t seem to have any firmness to them.

 

[Anne-Marie S]

Aaaand I uploaded the wrong egg pic so deleted it, here is the correct egg (Buffy’s unfertilised).

 

[BelovedBirds]

Btw, your duck is just sooo cute

thanks haha, she's called Dougie, she's my crazy bird

That's really weird, what makes you believe her eggs are unfertilised? Just from my perspective it seems like her eggs are getting to day 3 or so, with a blood island, and then quitting very early? But I don't know the situation so that's just my observation

 

[Anne-Marie S]

Lol every duck I’ve ever known has had a bit of crazy . It’s a great pic of her standing on your shoulder.

Yeah, I agree, they do look like early quitters. Those eggs were never fertilised though. We already had 5 chickens (2 roos, two hens and what is probably a cockerel) when we adopted a further 6 hens from a work friend’s MIL, she was moving and couldn’t keep them.

Being new birds I kept them quarantined for a week, all hens, no roosters. I’m currently building a new coop inside the old tennis court so I can separate my two roos into separate flocks, I only have the roof and nesting box to go before it’s finished (currently have a cage inside coop as a nesting box), so I’ve been keeping them there.

Then on the 8th day of having the new birds I let my older flock free-range in the bottom half of the tennis court because that’s what they were used to doing before the new birds came and they’d been confined to the smaller run all week and I felt bad about that.

I had two lots of bird netting up between the two groups with a big gap between, but Gladys got through it, she’s the smallest adult chicken I’ve ever seen. Well, she was cooing to my alpha roo and he was all too happy to oblige, so I let them share the middle strip together. She’s been laying fertilised eggs since then.

The older flock went back to the old run and Gladys and the rest of the new girls stayed with the new coop.

Darren never got the chance to mount Buffy or the other new girls, only Gladys, so that’s how I know Buffy isn’t laying fertilised eggs.

Wow, that was a lot longer than I meant it to be. I hope it clears things up a little though. I do agree that Buffy’s eggs look like early quitters, I really do get where you’re coming from. I know that unfertilised eggs have blood vessels so the only thing I can put it down to is that the egg was starting to go bad