Egg dying, do I detach? (And how?)

It's day 20 for my piebald clutch, and the last egg laid is clearly on it's way out: black and pink discolored patches on the bottom, like it's rotting from the inside.

It's currently attached to the rest of the clutch. Should I detach it? How much risk does it pose to the other five healthy eggs (in particular, to the one it is currently touching)?

And if I should detach it, how do I do that? Dental floss didn't work. I guess I could just cut the dying egg off when it gets really bad, but I'd rather not do that until it's clearly dead. Plus it'll make a mess, and potentially let more bacteria out.

(I see a lot of people detach the eggs from one another at the beginning, right after they are laid. How do you guys do that?)

Jackie, if you find the eggs right away they are pretty easy to pull apart. I check every morning and most of the time separating them is not an issue. However, if they are pretty stuck I just leave them together. If an egg dies it may "sweat" and make it easier to pull apart. If not, I just leave them. At the end of the incubation period, around day 53, the eggs become very easy to pull apart. If I have a dead egg I separate it then.

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Originally Posted by Dave Green

Jackie, if you find the eggs right away they are pretty easy to pull apart. I check every morning and most of the time separating them is not an issue. However, if they are pretty stuck I just leave them together. If an egg dies it may "sweat" and make it easier to pull apart. If not, I just leave them. At the end of the incubation period, around day 53, the eggs become very easy to pull apart. If I have a dead egg I separate it then.

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This..Be carefull when pulling a funky egg from the rest, the bacteria that is eating the egg makes the shell soft and very easy to tear..and trust me thats a mess in the egg box you really want to avoid.

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

This..Be carefull when pulling a funky egg from the rest, the bacteria that is eating the egg makes the shell soft and very easy to tear..and trust me thats a mess in the egg box you really want to avoid.

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Yeah, that's exactly what I'm worried about.

It's pretty securely attached right now. I guess I'll wait until it does die, move all the eggs into another box with just some grating for a few minutes, and see if it'll come loose. So at least if there's a mess, it won't contaminate the vermiculite.

How much of a threat does a dead egg pose to the rest of the clutch if it does stay attached? Gosh, I wish Mom had just rolled this one out for me... next year I think I will start separating them right after laying.

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I also have two-story-tall clutch, where my pewter laid her last egg on top of the first four. Somehow there's always a little extra moisture directly over that fifth egg, and water has been dripping down off the plastic wrap. I finally took out some of the vermiculite, so the eggs are sitting lower down, away from the top of box... but it still seems to be creating its own little raincloud.

And I caught the pewter laying, too. So I definitely could have pulled that one off myself. Bah.

Dave is right it is easiest to pull them apart when just laid and a few days before they are due to pip, after 20 days it is a VERY risky thing to attempt, and if you do it you need to pull very slowly putting pressure on the good egg while pulling the other. Again risky procedure that can cause a tear in the good egg.

Often the easiest way to remove an egg gone bad is to actually cut it off leaving a piece of the bad egg shell attached to the good egg, this way no tear.

I have seen people leaving the bad egg with the good ones with no issue, I personally pull them, however the choice is yours knowing that there are pro and cons with both.

Good luck.

Thanks, guys.

(Hey, I've been wondering: what do the little green check boxes that sometimes appear next to the post titles mean? When viewing the recent threads pages?)

I've only had it happen once because I pull my eggs apart when I find them, but my first year I had a dead egg almost from day one. I left for the entire 60 days, never put anything on it, or tried to clean it and it never did anything to my other eggs. It looked really scary and was dark red and green by the end!

I have heard that if you can thread waxed floss between the bad egg and the rest of the clutch you can "saw" it off. But my opinion would be unless it is actually causing harm to the rest of the clutch I would leave it as is. After all in nature mom can't really do it and they do manage to survive too...

I can't say anything about the bad egg but the drip... if you put a small angle on the lid or whole egg container the water will run down to the lower edge and drip there.

I would just leave it. Here's one that I left in the pile a few years ago:

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z.../dead_egg1.jpg

All of the babies in the other eggs were fine. The fluid in the neighboring eggs was darker than usual, but that was the only thing different.

If you do want to try to remove it and it is really stuck in there you could try draining it with a heavy gauge syringe/needle before cutting it away.

A healthy egg usually won't be affected by a bad egg. I had a clutch of 7 eggs and 4 went bad after about 4 weeks. They shriveled up turned brown and looked disgusting. But the other 3 stayed white as snow and hatched just fine.

IMO its probably better to just leave them.

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Originally Posted by jluman

I would just leave it. Here's one that I left in the pile a few years ago:

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z.../dead_egg1.jpg

All of the babies in the other eggs were fine. The fluid in the neighboring eggs was darker than usual, but that was the only thing different.

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BLEUGH! That looks just awful. Kind of amazing the other babies were fine. Well, okay then!

I just candled it, and there are no veins. The other 5 are have strong veins and look healthy as horses. I didn't actually candle the entire clutch when it was laid, so I have no idea if that one egg died, or was never really fertile to begin with. But it's definitely not now.

Oh, nasty, the dying egg is covered in fuzzy gray mold today. Sigh. I might just paint it over in liquid band-aid to contain the awfulness.

Shouldn't you eventually remove it though? I've been very fortunate in my few years of breeding to not have to deal with this, but I would be afraid that the others might pip into the bad egg? Has anyone ever had that happen? If so, I'm assuming it would not be good...


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