So my hatch date for my first egg clutch was three days ago. Three of the seven eggs are failing for sure (going flat) but the others still look mostly viable. Have some mold coming back and some discoloration of the eggs themselves. But they look puffy still and show plenty of veins. When using my light to check on them the bottom half of the good eggs show dark while the top half show their veins.
My question is mainly if the eggs are indeed still good how long after hatch date should I continue to incubate before calling things a wash? Until they all are definitely failed or is there some kind of time line to go by?
Also if needed can provide pics of the eggs with or without light.
This is a rule that I and others will recommend because perfectly healthy babies do hatch out of eggs that are “way” past their hatch date, especially if possible temperature swings happened during incubation.
Right I do know that term and planned on it. But like a month after hatch date is to long right? Two weeks? Just looking for some kind of ballpark kind of thing. I know bad eggs won’t last and good eggs that fail is similar, but is there some kind of time line to look at overall?
There really isn’t a such thing as a hatch day. Every clutch is different. If the eggs are fine I would leave them be if everything is ok they will be fine. And eggs start going “flat” the closer they get towards hatching. Honestly the best thing you can do is leave them alone.
They have been left alone except for a two time daily check visual through the Tupperware side where I can see them or a quick peek by cracking the lid. And will continue to leave them be. But what I mean by going flat is what one did just yesterday, sunk in and literally flattened in on itself. If there had been a viable baby the egg being as it was couldn’t hold it. And I’ve got two more deflating like that on two sides of the egg.
One of the key indicators of eggs getting ready to hatch is for them to lose turgidity and begin to “collapse in” as the shell softens up in preparation for the babies to begin cutting through. So the “going flat” might be a totally different sign that what you are interpreting it as
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This, right here.
As a real life example - my most recent kukri clutch. When I gave an update on the clutch at 72 days, literally everyone in the kukri FB group told me that the eggs were definitely bad because they all hatched theirs in ~65 days. I ignored them, because I know what a good egg looks like and they were all candling fine. At exactly 100 days, I had eight fang-faced little monsters crawl out, all hearty and hale.
As long as you see indicators of life in the egg, just keep them cooking. The babies will come out when the time is right for them.