Fertilized egg cracked

[guilhaz1]

Hello

I have a breeding pair of lovebirds. The hen was incubating five eggs, of which three have already hatched. Today when I went to check the remaining eggs, one of them was cracked, and it had blood coming out of the shell. What does this mean? Did the hen accidentally crack the shell? Will the little bird still survive and hatch? The remaining eggs were expected to hatch in the following 2-3 days. Can a baby survive if it comes premature out of the shell?

Thanks!

[linda040899]

When was the very first egg hatched? If you count 23 days from that day, that's when you can expect to see the first chick hatching. Normally blood from a crack in the egg is not a good thing because it means a blood vessel has ruptured. Could be just a small rupture and the baby will be fine.

Where in the shell is the crack? During the final days before an egg hatches, the air cell enlarges in te wide end of the egg whch is the air supply for the baby during the prcess. Where is the crack in relation to the air cell, itself. The baby may have done this and it's part of the hatching process. Not much you can do except watch and wait.