Very Weird Hatch

[Guest]

We set a dozen Ameraucana eggs that were shipped to us. 11 fertile and went to hatcher on day 18. 2 pipped and zipped as normal. Then 2 pipped but needed help out. Then the rest expired prior to day 18.
The ones that hatched had unusal slime that we have never seen before. It was yellow,  and brown and bright green ouzing from navels. They all really smelled bad! They were slow to thrive. Then the chicks had large squishy abdomens, not like anything we have ever seen.
We had a normal, healthy hatch from other breeders right before and right after.
Has anyone ever experienced this before. We are very concerned about possible contamination to eggs and have more in the bator from this breeder.

[bantamhill]

It could be some sort of ick that is in your incubator  . . . clean it very well or it sounds more like a humidity problem to me.

Michael

[John]

it sounds more like a humidity problem to me

That and/or temp me thinks.

[Guest]

So you don\'t think that the eggs were contaminated at the breeder? Or how would I find out if these chicks are OK? I don\'t want to infect my flock with something, but I also don\'t want to over react.
Remember...hatch before=OK, hatch after=OK . This hatch=yucky.

And Thank you for responding!! I really need some help on this one!!
Feel free to respond to me privately!!

[Guest]

The smell and green color are due to the decomposition of the proteins in the egg white. The decomposing proteins in the egg white release hydrogen sulfide (smelly gas) which combines with the iron in the yolk to form iron sulfide (green) at temperatures above 70 degrees F.

Normally you would need bacteria to work on the proteins to cause the production of hydrogen sulfide but the temperatures are high enough that you are getting some changes naturally. Normally birds would exchange gases across the allantois and the chorion membranes but for some reason your living chicks did not do this. They were not getting rid of the gases or producing such large amounts of gas that they could not effectively eliminate the gases. Hydrogen sulfide is a toxic gas- I do not see how the embryos survived the gas and evidently some did not.

Tim