# How do you decide if an egg is rotten or not ?



## Geochelone_Carbonaria (Aug 8, 2011)

Just a question to you more experienced Redfoot breeders out there;

How do you decide that an egg is rotten or non fertile, and when do you remove it from the incubator ? How long do you dare to wait ?

I usually wait as long as possible, but remove them as soon as they begin to smell or if they go grey/purple...


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## Tom (Aug 8, 2011)

I use the smell test too.


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## Yvonne G (Aug 9, 2011)

I wait until they explode.


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## yagyujubei (Aug 9, 2011)

If you wait that long, you contaminate all the other eggs with bacteria.


emysemys said:


> I wait until they explode.


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## richiecesa1 (Aug 15, 2011)

The best and the only way to decide is by smelling it.I do the same thing.


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## Geochelone_Carbonaria (Aug 15, 2011)

emysemys said:


> I wait until they explode.



That sounds a bit hazardy to me !

What do you mean by "explode" ? Do you mean until they start to leak or do you mean that literally ?


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## N2TORTS (Aug 16, 2011)

Geochelone_Carbonaria said:


> emysemys said:
> 
> 
> > I wait until they explode.
> ...



No ....Emmy's right ! .. They Explode* POP! .... stinky and messy ....I will use many deciding factors to judge rather an egg is bad or overdue. Some of those consist of smell, texture, color, length of time, even the mother who laid them......

JD~


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## Yvonne G (Aug 16, 2011)

I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again:

I had 4 yellowfoot tortoise eggs in the incubator. After a time (memory isn't serving me properly, and I'm too lazy to go look it up), they turned black. The incubator usually smells a bit off after three or four months, so I can't go by the smell test. Besides, there are usually 40 o 50 eggs in there. If one smells bad, how do you distinguish which one it is? So, anyway, the YF eggs were black but I was waiting for the Manouria eggs to hatch, so I left them alone. Those 4 eggs hatched out 3 YF babies, and the 4th egg was not fertile. So, after that with black stinkin' eggs, I just wait until they explode. I don't want to take a chance on throwing away a developing baby.


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## Geochelone_Carbonaria (Aug 16, 2011)

emysemys said:


> I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again:
> 
> I had 4 yellowfoot tortoise eggs in the incubator. After a time (memory isn't serving me properly, and I'm too lazy to go look it up), they turned black. The incubator usually smells a bit off after three or four months, so I can't go by the smell test. Besides, there are usually 40 o 50 eggs in there. If one smells bad, how do you distinguish which one it is? So, anyway, the YF eggs were black but I was waiting for the Manouria eggs to hatch, so I left them alone. Those 4 eggs hatched out 3 YF babies, and the 4th egg was not fertile. So, after that with black stinkin' eggs, I just wait until they explode. I don't want to take a chance on throwing away a developing baby.



Thanks Yvonne for that useful information. As I've never experienced any exploding RF egg before, I was curious, but I have had leaking ones.

But from what you've just written, I have to reconsider for the ones that gets dark/purple/black.


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