rotten egg ruining hatch?

[cukooformarans]

Also, fyi, my hatch rate from the last batch with the bad egg was terrible. We have been running 95-99 % hatches in our Brinsea (even with shipped eggs) and this one was less than 50% (with non-shipped eggs). While it is possible that unplugging the bator for 30 minutes to clean everything had an impact (which I doubt b/c broody hens come off the nest for that long to eat and poop) I think the biggest issue was with the eggs. They were given to my grandfather, but I think they must have been old or infertile to a large degree. I cracked some of the ones that didn't hatch to see what was going on and they were nothing but scrambled yolk.

 

[woodman]

Well, I lifted out the eggs, cleaned out the water tray and got rid of the dripped egg that was cooking down there, and that seemed to help a lot to get rid of the odor. I didn't try to clean the eggs; they were not directly dripped on anyway. we'll see soon what we get! Tom