omg Ive been killing my chicks!

[SallyF]

This summer I had a broody sitting on five eggs. I would go out each day and pull her off the nest for a few minutes to eat, drink, stretch, and poop. One day I noticed that one of the eggs had droplets of moisture on it; just noted that fact, but didn't do anything about it. The next day when I took broody off the nest, there were only four eggs. I was looking around for the other one when I heard a loud pop and smelled that awful smell. Looked at the hen: the egg had stuck to her breast feathers and exploded under her. She did look somewhat startled; I had to grab a rag and try to clean her feathers and then shovel up the litter and carry it out into the woods.

 

[Oven Ready]

Thanks for all the info.

We let our chickens do the hatching business but I've never had an egg explode. Sometimes the hen insists on pushing an egg out of the nest, I push it back in but if it's out again more than once it gets opened and fed to the fish, I guess she can smell thru the egg.
I've certainly smelled the smell as we always have a look to see why each egg didn't hatch and occaisionally had a 'popper' when I make the hole and then it's 'quick throw it in the pond' - the fish seem happy, stinky egg or not.

 

[jessaw1981]

well I am doing quail eggs right now after today is lockdown but they will explode a couple of mine did. I did not have a light to candle till yesterday. But also when the chicks are not alive they start to smell ( trust me they do ) lol. and that's gasses that the alive ones don't need to smell I have 16 eggs left out of 48 but 400 of mine were shipped it looks like all 16 are alive (crossing fingers ) good luck.

 

[mothersin2ition]

Thank you to everyone who has replied

Its funny, all this talk about exploding eggs, because I experienced my first one today. We discovered an old clutch of eggs under one of our bushes and as I pulled them out into a pile on the ground, one exploded. It totally sounded like a pop gun and the smell was ATROCIOUS! I can't imagine having that nasty odor in your bator

.
Anyway, I havent candled since yesterday, and I wont until after day 10 or so. This experience has definitely taught me alot. Thanks again for all the great advice and words of comfort