When candling 24 day old egg, the air bubble has extended down. Why?

[riverman]

I have 29 pure BBS Ameraucana eggs in the bator but they're 24 days old and nothing yet... when candling, the round air bubble in the big end of the egg has morphed or taken up more space then the usual circle. What is going on?!? A lot of the eggs are dead, I can see the blood rings, is this air bubble moving because of some kind of bacteria that my eggs took in?

What a sad sad day...

 

[Tokajein]

The air bubble get big like that when there is not enough humidity.

So try adjusting it a little.

 

[adrian]

The air cell will become like that during internal pip.

EDIT: Here's a picture of what it might look like:

 

[riverman]

so if the air bubble is weird like that and the egg is not fully shadowed like it should look like right before it hatches, then its probably a dead egg?

 

[adrian]

Forgive me, I wasn't sure how developed the egg was. You say they are on day 24 of development? I'm a little confused. At day 24, even if they're going to hatch really late, they're going to be fully shadowed like that. So if you have an egg that looks clear, and isn't full (and with no visible veins) at day 24, I'm sorry to say that the egg has likely been dead for a while. What exactly does the egg look like? An air cell that is very large like that, with an underdeveloped or dead embryo, is likely just large because of a lot of moisture loss... In which case, you will likely have to make sure your humidity is right next time around. It will do no good now, however.