If you've been following for a while, you might remember that one of our eggs had a crack in it from shipping, so I coated it with wax to seal it in hopes that it would hatch anyway. Things were going perfectly until around day 16 or 17 when we candled and couldn't see any movement. We decided to keep it in the incubator just in case the embryo was sleeping or something. After the hatching of the other 3 eggs, I recandled, and again saw no movement. I also noticed that the egg just didn't feel right and so decided to pronounce it "unhatched".
Out of curiosity, I used a pin to chip away at the eggshell. I was careful not to puncture the membrane, just in case I was by some chance wrong with the candling. If the baby had been viable for some reason and just not moving, I would have known by looking at the membrane. Alas, this was not the case, so I took a bunch of pictures of her so that she did not die in vain. I figure someone may find these useful scientifically. If not, she is still beautiful in her own sad way.
Please- if you have children, watch the slideshow first and use your own judgement as to whether they can handle the photos or not. We showed Jib, who will be 3 next month. We told him that she just wasn't strong enough to hatch because she stopped growing, and sometimes things like this happen. He was sad about it for a minute, wanted to touch her (which I let him and then made him wash his hands, he just wanted to pet her head). He then wanted to see the other chicks that were still hanging out in the incubator, I think to make sure that they were still in there. All in all, I think it was a good learning experience for him even at this young age; but I know every child is different.
I had to resize the slideshow to get it to show up in it's entirety on here. If you'd like to view the full size version, please leave a comment and I'll email it to you. Thanks!
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