# a mishap while candling my eggs



## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

Today i wanted to candle the eggs i got a good chance because the parents were eating together for sometime before their duty swap so i rushed to candle my eggs.
As the egg was little dirty i was trying to clean it with a tissue and what happened is it was so brittle that it just broke and fell into the bowl where i was carrying all the eggs and it opened up i saw the embryo and there was some bad smell , i had seen no heart beat or anything and i literally panic-stricken
actually i don't know if the egg shell was so light and brittle or it was fully my fault because i have this health problem and my hand goes trembling most of the times

*here is the image please tell me if the embryo was living*









*one of the egg has a crack in it,*








In most of the eggs i feel the embryo is DIS because i can see the smudge in center but there is no movement or heart beat as showed in striles notes and videos
what should i do? m so upset and i am totally down and feeling extremely low for the mishap,this is the reason why i was afraid to candle the eggs as m not good in handling delicate things. I feel ashamed of myself.


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## bjknight93 (Nov 13, 2011)

Well it definitely was developed, but I don't know if it was dead before or after you broke the shell. How long have these eggs been in the nest?


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

hi bjknight thank you for responding ,with tomorrow some of the eggs have been in there for a month now and as i did not mark them i do not know which were laid first yes i can see it was developed but even when it open i could not see any heart beat or anything, does this coloring indicate that the embryo must have been alive ? because some one was saying if its brownish red then its DIS


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

in the second pic are the cracks on the egg s visible why is there a crack ? is this a humidity problem because most eggs look Dis to me as almost all of them have smudges in center


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## bjknight93 (Nov 13, 2011)

Well they are all well past the hatch date..and past the 10 day period for them to be without incubation. So I'd say at this point the clutch is likely all DIS. I don't think the embryo was living. Are the parents still sitting on these eggs?


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

If there was no heart beat, I very much doubt this egg was alive when it broke. With the egg being brittle it sounds like it may have started to rot (which would account for the smell, as eggs that aren't rotting don't have a smell when broken.) So really this wasn't your fault. But you do need to candle the eggs, otherwise you wont know if there's any issues or if a baby needs help and you could lose babies for reasons that could've been prevented.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

> in the second pic are the cracks on the egg s visible why is there a crack ? is this a humidity problem because most eggs look Dis to me as almost all of them have smudges in center


A smudge is not what you're looking for, you need to look at the color of the veins. Are they red or brown? Brown veins is DIS. Red veins is viable. Chicks will pip (which means they crack the eggs from the inside to get out) so do the cracks look like they came from the inside (they will look pushed out) or the oustide (they will look pushed in.) If from the outside (i.e. the parents did it on accident) does this egg have a heart beat and how big is the embryo? If not very big, you can patch the egg to fix it and the baby has a chance to make it. But if the baby is filling up the whole egg then don't patch it because it will make it harder for the baby to get out.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

Yes they have always been sitting sincerely on the eggs and see what i have done  m such a disaster always! why do they sit on the eggs sincerely even when they are DIS? please don't mistake me for comparing like this i have a doubt here, now at the same time a pair of my budgies had their first clutch but they were in open pots and my tiels had their nest boxes is that why the budgies survived where as my sunshine's eggs had a problem because of the climate and temperature.
On all days they were doing their normal routine and why did these eggs go DIS even under proper incubation ?


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Just because they're in the box doesn't mean they're sitting right and because there were so many eggs not every one could be sat on correctly. DIS eggs happen, its normal. You could get a humidity gauge to check the humidity (should be about 50% humidity for proper egg development.) But you had two babies hatch from this clutch, that's a good thing. Look on the bright side. You didn't do anything to this baby, it was already gone when the egg broke.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

i'm not sure about how the cracks look  and i just wanted to know are the egg shells broke because they are old or because sunshine has a calcium deficiency problem ? now this is freaking me even more  but m sure the eggs do look old and almost all of them are DIS and can anyone tel me why please ? after all the tiring and sincere incubation why has this happened ?


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

hi roxy thank you for being kind and also for the responses, what is a humidity gauge where can i find it ?


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## bjknight93 (Nov 13, 2011)

I think you should remove the remaining eggs; if they are rotting then that isn't a good environment for the living babies..


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

A humidity gauge can be bought online http://www.google.com/#q=humidity+g...pw.r_qf.&fp=881d428f4149223c&biw=1920&bih=963 I did a search and these are the results I got. 

I would remove any eggs you don't see a heartbeat in. They can be a danger to the current living babies if they aren't removed and break like this one did.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

okay i would remove them i understand but will sunshine be worried about me doing this to her eggs ? she saw me taking the eggs not replacing the same umbers i know they cannot count but will it affect her mentally ? i see her is little upset today


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Since she has babies to worry about I don't think she's going to be too concerned about eggs, seeing as how they haven't hatched when they were supposed to. Leave the one that was yellow on the inside and take the others out.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

okay roxy will do that tomorrow morning, thank you so much


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Just now I was reading an article about assist hatches on srtiels website and noticed a picture of a DIS embryo that looks similar to the contents of your broken egg. The article is at http://justcockatiels.weebly.com/assist-hatches.html and this is the picture:


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

Thank you so much tiel fan, these details would be so useful.
Is there anything you would like to advise about the DIS eggs ?i am thinking its a humidity problem as the budgie eggs has hatched with out any problems and m wondering why this is happened with most of the eggs. I'm glad i have to babies but i would like to learn why , how and what can be done so that i can enrich my knowledge.
Thank you so much for the response tiel fan


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

If the budgies are hatching out OK it probably isn't the humidity. Budgies and cockatiels come from the same environment (the Australian outback) and should need similar conditions for successful hatching.

If all the DIS eggs are in approximately the same stage of development, I would guess that the parents were off the nest for too long and the eggs chilled and died. We would expect some eggs to be a bit more developed than others of course because the eggs that were laid first were incubated longer. If you're brave enough to open up the DIS eggs, you'll have a better idea of how the embryo sizes compare to each other.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

Hi tielfan yes as you said budgies and tiels have their origin from australia i m aware of that.
could it be that the budgie eggs were in pots and the tiels were in nest boxes , does that make a difference because it could have been too much of heat inside the nest box, we had very few showers, and most of the time it was bright and sunny.
I'm feeling bad to break open the eggs, today also i attempted to do so but failed 
will try opening the eggs tomorrow


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

According to http://weatherspark.com/averages/33948/Chennai-Madras-Tamil-Nadu-India the humidity in Madras is almost always above 30%, which is fine for egg hatching. In your location it's more likely to have a problem caused by high humidity. I live in the desert and my eggs hatch without problem when the humidity is 20% or less (sometimes MUCH less). My parent birds do NOT wet their feathers to bring moisture into the nest like they're supposed to. I don't actually understand how my eggs are able to hatch. Sometimes I run a humidifier to add moisture, but the eggs hatch whether I do that or not.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

Even my birds did not wet themselves to create moisture in their nests  while I read about breeding I had read that the mother always does that if it's a dehydrating situation.
I'm feeling bad that all are DIS


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

The good news is that two of the babies survived, and whatever killed the other eggs didn't harm them.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

Yes tiel fan m absolutely excited about my babies  so thrilled and contended


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

OK....the broken egg looks like it had went DIS at least several days ago. if it was alive there would have been fresh blood, and the egg contents were brown and starting to decompose. So,*you did not* harm'kill the baby.

OK....a couple of causes for the DIS. You mentioned that the shell was thin and fragile and broke eaisly in your hand. When the chick is developing and nearing hatch time it will draw nutrients from the egg and additional calcium from the shell. In doing this if the shell was not thick enough to begin with, when the chick drew calcium from the shell it made it too thin and pourous and possibly bacteria would/could have entered the egg. if so, then there would be some bruising on the body of the chick, many times around the head or neck. 

If other eggs also look DIS, and when candled look like varying stages of development something may have spooked a parent (many times this is the hen during the night) off the nest for several hours....long enough to chill the eggs too much, resulting in death.

OK...as to the cracked egg. this can be from a couple of causes. if there is sparse or no bedding in the bottom of the nest the eggs could have jarred against each other and cracked. OR if a parent panicked and scrambled to get out of the nest they could have punctured the shell with a toenail.

OK....just some thoughts. At night time do you keep a night light or low wattage (25-40 watt) lighting on during the night. i have found that this helps if the parents get spooked during the night and get off the nest they can see what disturbed them, and if all is well see to go back in the nest before the eggs cool.


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## sangs_becky (Jun 25, 2012)

hi striles i was so waiting for you to get to this thread, thank you so much 
yes i have a night lamp on and yeah they get startled easily even while being in a safe and well known environment for almost three years now.
All the eggs are also DIS but at an earlier stage in this because in this i could clearly see the yellow embryo, the shell that was cracked was empty on the inside i'm guessing the parents would have caused the crack by stepping on it as you have said because when sunshine laid them the eggs were in the corner of the cage and while they started sitting on them the eggs were in the center of the nest box. *A question here where would the eggs be safe in the nest box right in the middle or towards the sides?*
I used hay as my bedding because we do not get pine shavings here and most of the shavings here do not have their exact english names and i di not wont to take the risk and use somethinginh that will not be good for chicks after advises from our forum i went on using hay and the two chicks have good and strong legs 
I got the hay from a known source who have cows i did not was them but i put them in a clean place under the sun for a couple of days *could it be because of the hay that the eggs were prone to bacteria ?*because only twice i have handled the eggs and my hands were always washed clean before touching them


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