Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my rouen has been laying eggs and we have incubated several of them for a school project. the eggs are going to full term and the chicks have pipped the egg a little and then there is no movement at all. after determining that the first egg was dead i did peel the shell away to see if i could see the problem . what i found was a fully developed duck but looked like its belly was on the outside. we have found this with the other eggs as well. any suggestions ? or any advice of why this is happening and how to provent it? any advice would be appreciated. thank you.

Hey,

Im sorry to hear about the lil ducklings.
I don't really know what could have caused this. Maybe its a genetic problem inherited by one of the parents? If i was you i'd take the eggs/ducklings to a Vet and ask them to examine it. They might be able to find a cause of the problem.

Mel X

I've seen this before in chicken eggs. THe chick had stopped developing at day 11 perhaps you could let them go longer? How long did you wait before opening the egg? That is normal although it seems weird for the insides to be on the outside they pull it in (in chickens) on day 17. Maybe something happened while incubating like a spike in temp or a change in humidity that caused the duckling to die before reaching fullterm... Best of luck,
Madison Bartlett

Hey Madison

Thats really interesting, i've never heard of that before. But some good points to remember there so thankies.

Take care
Mel X

hi, thanks for the advice. i did let the eggs go full term to 33 days and they did pip. that is when there was all of a sudden no movement and i notice the air cell wasnt broken. while candling them throughout incubation they were developing fine and right on schedule. thanks so much for the help.
ilesha