Lesson learned in giving broodies eggs

[Jbently28]

So several is ago my Turkey and one of my bantam Cochins went broody. I decided to let them sit on several fertile eggs that I had. This was their first time going broody and I've never hatched any eggs before. I figured why not give it a go and let nature take its course. So I candles the eggs and culled out the unviable ones as time went on and added new ones as well. They've probably gone through a total of 20 eggs. Some stopped developing and some were crushed. I only had 7 remaining. Today I walked out to the coop and my Turkey was pacing wanting out. So I let her out and noticed the sound of flies. I looked in the coop and found an egg that had swelled and half of the shell was gone. The membranes were intact but had a green tint to it. This was of course an egg that I had marked with "?". The embryo was large but I hadn't seen any movement. At this point I knew that the chick had already passed. Luckily, I caught it before it exploded. So then I decided to candle once more. 2 of the eggs left had detached air cells. I had done research and decided to leave them be as there have been success stories of them hatching. It had been about a week since I candled them not wanting to disturb the air cell furthermore. because of the situation which occurred today, I decided to candle my eggs once more. The 4 other eggs were developing quite nicely (good size air cells, movement, and veining). In the 2 with the detached air cells there was no movement at all. They had a faint smell to them but I was unsure if this was from the rotten egg that they were in with. I went back and forth as to what to do with them. I had absolutely no idea what day they were on. So I took a chance, removed them from the nest, placed them in a Ziploc bag, and tossed them to the ground. I knew as soon as they made a splat sound that I had made the right choice. They were just as rotten as the previous and probably a day away from exploding and contaminating the rest of my eggs. So the lesson I learned, ALWAYS know what day your eggs are on. My 4 remaining eggs are luckily all dated. I have 6 eggs that I will be giving my bantam tomorrow. Let's just hope at least one of them makes it. Who knew that hatching the old fashioned way could be so complicated. I'm currently looking into buying an incubator as I've learned tons from this forum over the past couple of weeks and really want to try my hand at it.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Amen. Staggered hatches are bad.

 

[Jbently28]

Amen. Staggered hatches are bad.

Yes as I've learned. NEVER again will I attempt it!