Twins in one egg!!

[Botanya]

Hi all. So i think I've got some exciting news. About 2 nights ago I candled my eggs and i noticed I've got a double yolker, and that both side must have been fertile as both the yolkers each have a developing chick in it. So when i candle again, i will take some photos and post it. Hold thumbs guys !!!

 

[chooks4life]

Sorry to be a downer, but that's not really good news. There's good reasons why double-yolker layers are culled, not bred, and double-yolker eggs are consumed, not brooded. It basically never ends well. It's generally a heritable trait which risks the life of the hens and the chicks almost never survive.

If it's not too far along, personally I'd throw it, sorry...

But I understand that may not be an option for you. If you decide to go ahead with it you will likely need to be present to assist it with hatching and have to remove one or both chicks to rear by hand as they will almost certainly be far weaker than normal chicks as well as unable to hatch naturally, since that's generally how it goes, and one of them will probably be extremely weak, with an emaciated body, far too weak to cope without serious care, and even then probably too weak to survive beyond a week or two.

Best wishes.

 

[Botanya]

Hi, the thing is if I knew it was double yolker I whould not have incubated it, caught me completely by surprise. I don't know, the more I read up on it, the more it is freaking me out. Don't know if I should go ahead or not. I don't really have the heart to just discard it

 

[bre113]

I hatched chicks a month ago and one of the eggs that didn't hatch was a double yolk. Both chicks made it until about 13-14 days, then both died. I'm new to hatching so I didn't know they were double yolk until I opened it.

 

[chooks4life]

Hi, the thing is if I knew it was double yolker I whould not have incubated it, caught me completely by surprise. I don't know, the more I read up on it, the more it is freaking me out. Don't know if I should go ahead or not. I don't really have the heart to just discard it

I understand completely, I'm not criticizing you; been there done that myself. Now I candle all eggs before brooding them.

You may not have the heart to discard it, but that conversely kind of means you have the heart to deal with the failure of the resulting chicks to survive; discarding them in a more dormant state is easier than watching them die once they've hatched.

There's a chance you'll get one chick out of this, I've not heard of both twins surviving though, but there's an exception to every rule... That said your chances are astronomically low, so, hopefully forewarned is forearmed.

But, best wishes with it.