KodiakFox
Chirping
Hi guys,
So this is my first official post since my introduction post several weeks ago. I've found this forum to be really helpful to me and my egg adventures so I wanted to post info and pics on my first ever QUITTER goose egg. Out of all my goose eggs so far, all that have sparked a vein have resulted in birds (5 goslings so far, more to come soon!). So I actually feel pretty ok about having one failed egg. This one was on about day 14. I had candled 5 days before and it had healthy veins. So sometime shortly after that it failed. It was also one of the very last eggs my "hen" laid so perhaps there were less resources for it when it was formed.
WARNING: there are photos and they might be icky to some people. There is NO formed bird in this egg, just egg material and blood. So if you're cool with that keep reading
My first clue that there was something funny was of course I candled and saw NO veins. It was all muddy inside and kind of chunky. No movement. Sorry but I didn't take a photo of that part when it was dark enough to see it. I also on the same day noticed there was a very VERY slight musty odor in my incubator. I thought maybe I hadn't cleaned it well enough but I took the suspect egg out this morning and sure enough the smell dissipated. As a precaution I tapped a hole in the air cell end of the egg and took a sniff (outside, ha!) and it had the same mild musty smell, much like right after a hatch but not as strong. Just kind of meaty smelling and not quite right.
Please note in the first photo the ring around the edge of the air cell. That is not a good sign! The second photo was my attempt to show the muddy murky interior and lack of veining, but it is not a great pic so I apologize. So with no rotten nasty smell I decided to take it inside and open it slowly (just in case I was wrong!). I peeled at the air cell end and had a look at the membrane through a small hole before proceeding. It was very brown and no veins. So I peeled the rest of that end:
Looks pretty dead to me! So I poured out the rest:
Yucky! No rotten egg smell, just a musty kind of ick but very faint. This was all I could see of any formed life:
So that was it! That would have been the heart I assume. Everything else was just kind of mixed all around together and must have failed pretty recently before I caught it. I have 6 more eggs that all look great, 4 are due next week. I've had such great hatching luck I knew I was "due" for some sort of a failure
I'm glad this one didn't make it too far at least.
I hope this helps people learn and decide about if they have their own quitter eggs and some of the things to look for. It's a risky thing giving those questionable eggs a chance to grow without contaminating everyone else in the incubator....
I hope this is helpful!
-Heather
So this is my first official post since my introduction post several weeks ago. I've found this forum to be really helpful to me and my egg adventures so I wanted to post info and pics on my first ever QUITTER goose egg. Out of all my goose eggs so far, all that have sparked a vein have resulted in birds (5 goslings so far, more to come soon!). So I actually feel pretty ok about having one failed egg. This one was on about day 14. I had candled 5 days before and it had healthy veins. So sometime shortly after that it failed. It was also one of the very last eggs my "hen" laid so perhaps there were less resources for it when it was formed.
WARNING: there are photos and they might be icky to some people. There is NO formed bird in this egg, just egg material and blood. So if you're cool with that keep reading
My first clue that there was something funny was of course I candled and saw NO veins. It was all muddy inside and kind of chunky. No movement. Sorry but I didn't take a photo of that part when it was dark enough to see it. I also on the same day noticed there was a very VERY slight musty odor in my incubator. I thought maybe I hadn't cleaned it well enough but I took the suspect egg out this morning and sure enough the smell dissipated. As a precaution I tapped a hole in the air cell end of the egg and took a sniff (outside, ha!) and it had the same mild musty smell, much like right after a hatch but not as strong. Just kind of meaty smelling and not quite right.
Please note in the first photo the ring around the edge of the air cell. That is not a good sign! The second photo was my attempt to show the muddy murky interior and lack of veining, but it is not a great pic so I apologize. So with no rotten nasty smell I decided to take it inside and open it slowly (just in case I was wrong!). I peeled at the air cell end and had a look at the membrane through a small hole before proceeding. It was very brown and no veins. So I peeled the rest of that end:
Looks pretty dead to me! So I poured out the rest:
Yucky! No rotten egg smell, just a musty kind of ick but very faint. This was all I could see of any formed life:
So that was it! That would have been the heart I assume. Everything else was just kind of mixed all around together and must have failed pretty recently before I caught it. I have 6 more eggs that all look great, 4 are due next week. I've had such great hatching luck I knew I was "due" for some sort of a failure
I'm glad this one didn't make it too far at least.I hope this helps people learn and decide about if they have their own quitter eggs and some of the things to look for. It's a risky thing giving those questionable eggs a chance to grow without contaminating everyone else in the incubator....
I hope this is helpful!
-Heather
