Egg Advice

[Natural]

Howdy everyone. Hoping to get a bit of advice on this egg situation I'm dealing with.

Eggs are on day 49 (laid 5/19) incubating at around 88.9 degrees so expecting them to pip this weekend. I've been having a bit of a mold problem with this clutch, white fuzz splotches here and there on many of the eggs, but it hasn't seemed to have a major impact on them. I opened the bin about 2 weeks ago and wiped much of it off the eggs but it has since grown back.

Went down to check on them today and noticed one of the eggs was super off color and so I opened the egg bin and took a look. I found this:




I decided to candle the egg to see what was going on inside and there's definitely a developed baby inside, it's a bit tricky to see in the image, but there's a bit of pattern right above the light.



So my question is, what would you do in this situation? Should I treat this as an emergency and cut the egg today? Wait and see what happens? Plan to cut it in a few days? Is the egg already gone and there's no hope? I'm really struggling to make a definitive decision here and it isn't helpful to the situation. I normally allow the babies to pip all on their own but I have cut in the past so I'm comfortable doing so. Any advice would be hugely appreciated. Thanks all!

[Lord Sorril]

A little bit of mold is not an issue. A lot of mold usually means there is something wrong.

Cutting will get you nothing except issues until you see some of the hatchlings start to pip. If you have mold growing in the egg box: cutting is also bad news.

Eggs will sweat near the time they hatch, but, none of the others shown are doing the same...which suggests that the egg you circled has died during development and the fluids are starting to leak out of their membranes.

I would keep it in the incubator until I was 100% sure it failed (better safe than sorry). In the meanwhile-just make sure that none of the other eggs are in direct contact with it.

[Natural]

A little bit of mold is not an issue. A lot of mold usually means there is something wrong.

Cutting will get you nothing except issues until you see some of the hatchlings start to pip. If you have mold growing in the egg box: cutting is also bad news.

Eggs will sweat near the time they hatch, but, none of the others shown are doing the same...which suggests that the egg you circled has died during development and the fluids are starting to leak out of their membranes.

I would keep it in the incubator until I was 100% sure it failed (better safe than sorry). In the meanwhile-just make sure that none of the other eggs are in direct contact with it.

Thank you very much! I'm going to follow your advice and hold off on cutting and see what happens. I'll probably open it in a few days and see if I notice a smell or anything. If so I'll remove the bad egg. I appreciate your quick response!

[Armiyana]

I second the advice already given.

Honestly unless it goes VERY bad VERY fast, you might not notice a smell but it will definitely look much worse in a few days. I had one this year that didn't start to look too bad until day 45 and that was when it really turned nasty fast. But the baby inside hadn't developed any color or pattern. It died a couple of weeks earlier, but eggs are very good at what they do and hadn't showed much change until it really got bad inside.

[Natural]

I second the advice already given.

Honestly unless it goes VERY bad VERY fast, you might not notice a smell but it will definitely look much worse in a few days. I had one this year that didn't start to look too bad until day 45 and that was when it really turned nasty fast. But the baby inside hadn't developed any color or pattern. It died a couple of weeks earlier, but eggs are very good at what they do and hadn't showed much change until it really got bad inside.

Hmm ok good to know. It really is crazy, 3 days ago it looked completely normal and now I'm just shocked with how bad it got. I'm unfortunately away this weekend so I'll probably move the bad egg to its own deli cup with some incubation medium in the incubator on Thursday if I haven't been able to make a clear decision about it. Probably safer to do that than let the babies interact with it once they've pipped. I'm having someone kindly move the hatchlings into a tub for me but I don't think I'll ask them to remove a spoiled egg