Smelly Coturnix Quail Incubator

[abbya12]

Hi again! Boy oh boy have I already posted a lot of questions But everyone has been so helpful, I thought I'd ask another.

I have 10 Coturnix quail eggs in my incubator right now. Today is day 13 and I plan to lockdown tonight. However, I've been noticing a bad smell coming from my incubator. At first, my family thought it was just the egg carton I had put in there, but after taking it out, the incubator still smells . I recognize that I probably have a rotting egg in there, but it is not obvious which egg it is, and it would absolutely kill me to kill a living chick. I have also heard that coturnix are not likely to explode like chicken eggs do, so what do people think? Should I leave all the eggs in there? Will the smell contaminate the healthy eggs? Or should I work to find the rotting egg (however I can)?

Help is greatly appreciated!!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I would first suspect a bad egg. Take each one out individually till you find the culprit/s and toss it. Any bad egg of any species can explode when gasses from bacterial growth expand.
After you get it out, it wouldn't hurt to disinfect the incubator. What kind of incubator is it?

 

[007Sean]

If you have a good nose you can smell the rotten egg. Handle them very carefully, don't want them exploding on your nose, and smell each one, a lot of the times you can also see that it is rotten when you candle them, if there is a liquid movement around the air cell, chances are that the embryo has died. Sometimes you can see a dark ring below the air cell, not necessarily a blood ring but a darkened ring.