Pictures egg candling shows red ring at day 5 of incubation

[rritoch]

We (my wife and I) have a pair of rainbow lorkeet's who had their first cluch but after 5 days they were not sitting on the eggs. We moved the eggs into our custom-made brooder, added a bowel of water and are maintaining the temperature at around 37-38C (99F) as best as we can. We have now been incubating the eggs for 5 days and while one of them has no noticeable change the other clearly has had some activity as it has developed a red ring. Prior to having a red ring it had a dark spot (around day 3). I did some searches on Google and am finding conflicting information regarding a red ring. Some say veins formed inside the red ring attaching to a dark spot in the center, while others are saying the red ring indicates the egg has died and the red ring is due to bacteria and the blood moving away from the embryo after it died. The three pictures below are of the egg which has the red ring.




Is this egg alive? Is it safe to keep the other egg which doesn't appear to be fertilized with this egg?

This is my first time trying to incubate an egg and the first time our rainbow lorikeets have laid eggs. I've yet to seen any "spider veins" in either of the eggs which is what I would expect to see but I am unable to find any images online of candled lorikeet eggs.

 

[JosienBB]

@melissasparrots @Greycloud @CheekyBeaks

 

[melissasparrots]

Most likely its a dead in shell. Usually a early stage fertile egg looks like a little curl of pink. Sometimes you can even see a pulsating beginning of a heart by around day 5. Shortly after that, the veins become more noticeable. Since I don't see any little embryo in the center of that ring or any healthy veins, it is most likely dead unfortunately. Personally I'd keep it in the incubator a few more days just to be sure since I'm not an expert on artificial incubation. I will tell you that as an amateur with less than perfect equipment, it is tough incubating from very early. The success rate goes up a lot if the parents are willing to incubate for the first 14 days or so. On the plus side, you know your pair are capable of producing fertile eggs.

 

[Greycloud]

I agree with Melissa. This looks like a blood ring formed. This was probably viable at one time and is now deceased. Give a few more days to see if any veins form. I am wondering if your hen was not sitting because she was going to lay more. Newbies sometimes take a bit to get the whole brooding and nesting right.

 

[rritoch]

Thanks for the feedback. We gave the mother 5 days after she laid the second egg to start sitting on it, in case she was going to lay more. I'm a complete newbie to incubation, this was just a desperate attempt to save the eggs that the parents were ignoring. I believe this is their first clutch so it seems likely that either they don't know what they're doing, they don't want babies, or they knew something was wrong with the eggs. We have never had this problem with our Ringnecks or Lovebirds. Our Ringnecks sit on their eggs from day one, as did our lovebirds. The lovebirds would usually destroy the eggs by day 3, but we were never brave enough to take them at day 2 and try to incubate, we just ran under the assumption that the eggs must have been bad. The Ringnecks on the other hand doesn't seem to have any problem laying on bad, infertile eggs, we just had to toss out an entire cluch of 4 ringneck eggs after 30 days of natural incubation by the mother. I dissected the eggs and they were clearly never fertile but the mother was still sitting on them even though they were long overdue. We have had these rainbow lorikeets for about 2 years and this is their first time laying eggs. They are back to mating, and I expect they'll lay 2 more soon. From what I've read they only naturally produce 2 cluches a year so even if she doesn't lay on the new eggs I plan on leaving them, at least for a month or so, to keep her from laying any more. I prefer the mother sit on the eggs, but I don't know any way to convince her to do so. This was my first attempt at incubation and it seems to be a complete failure but as far as I can tell they would have died either way.

I plan on waiting a few days to see if anything changes. My wife refuses to give up on them so they'll probably stay in incubation until (hopefully) our Ringnecks need the brooder. I believe 2 of the 3 ringneck eggs we have remaining are still good. They are due to start hatching in 8 days so my fingers are crossed. So far this has been a very bad breeding season, probably because of the heat.

 

[parrotluv]

Make sure they are in a quiet location. If you are peeking often into the nest, this could be causing her to be nervous and not incubate them. I know it is so tempting but after the first egg is noticed no more peeking for 30 days.

 

[melissasparrots]

If you have ringnecks sitting on eggs, you might try to put the lory eggs under the ringnecks depending on size difference and how far along the ringneck eggs are. I'm not sure I'd let a ringneck feed the babies due to the drastic difference in diet, however, they might get you through the first most sensitive several days of incubation. Unless you have a super great homemade incubator and went totally above and beyond, I'd get a more professional incubator if you think you might seriously want to incubate with consistent results. Parrot eggs can be sensitive. Much more so than chicken or quail eggs.

Another thing to consider, parrot eggs can go longer than you would think without being incubated and still develop. I'm pretty sure I started artificial incubation on some quaker eggs more than 7 days after being laid and they still developed. I don't know if lorys are any more sensitive or not. If they start incubating and the embryo begins to form and then they stop, the chick will die. However, if they never start at all and you take over with a good incubator even potentially several days later, you might have a shot. I just mention that because maybe a young pair might benefit from having you leave the eggs with the parents so they can think about things a little longer. Or put the eggs under the ringnecks and put fake eggs under the lorys so they get some practice figuring things out. Sometimes its destined to fail no matter what you do, but if you don't try something, then you won't ever have success. My quaker pair were horrible parents. Its like they sat around in the off season thinking of new ways to screw up their parenting. I got babies from them fairly consistently, but I had to try something new almost every year.

 

[rritoch]

Make sure they are in a quiet location. If you are peeking often into the nest, this could be causing her to be nervous and not incubate them. I know it is so tempting but after the first egg is noticed no more peeking for 30 days.

Lol, quiet location?? They are the source of 90% of the noise, the other 10% comes from a chattering lory that we have. The chattering lory gets upset about all the noise the rainbow lorikeets make and starts yelling about it... Lots of fun. As for "peeking" I was able to lure her into the nesting box by opening the box. For the most part they follow me whenever I'm near, and they'll really leave the nesting box when I enter the room. By opening the nesting box they came into the nesting box to see me. Even though I was able to get her into the nesting box she still didn't get the hint that I wanted her to sit on her eggs.

 

[rritoch]

If you have ringnecks sitting on eggs, you might try to put the lory eggs under the ringnecks depending on size difference and how far along the ringneck eggs are.

That seems to be a good idea, I'm somewhat worried the Ringneck may intentionally destroy the egg. The eggs are mostly the same size and color though. Instead of trying to incubate I probably should have put it in with the Ringneck that laid 4 infertile eggs, but since it was her first clutch for the year we didn't want to stop her from laying a second clutch.

 

[CheekyBeaks]

I'd definitely leave it several more days in the incubator to see what happens, it hard to see into he pics as they are blurry but it is possible it is alive. Early stages of fertility will show a ring such as this form, I can normally see it about 3 days into incubation, at around 5ish days you will see the heart beat from the embryo And veins will be noticeable. I wouldn't give up just yet. When an egg dies the colour usually changes too.

 

[rritoch]

I'd definitely leave it several more days in the incubator to see what happens, it hard to see into he pics as they are blurry but it is possible it is alive. Early stages of fertility will show a ring such as this form, I can normally see it about 3 days into incubation, at around 5ish days you will see the heart beat from the embryo And veins will be noticeable. I wouldn't give up just yet. When an egg dies the colour usually changes too.

I hope it is still alive and we are continuing to incubate the eggs. I really wasn't able to find any pictures of healthy candled rainbow lorikeet eggs. My guess is that most rainbow lorikeet owners don't breed them since they are very loud and often get into fights which are super-loud. Even though they fight, hours later they go back to mating. We did try separating them once but they were miserable apart so we just cope with the fighting. I have a tiny suspicion that the fights are why the female refused to sit on the eggs. They have never been injured in the fights, I don't think they even bite eachother, the fight is mostly yelling at eachother and going through the action that they are going to bite but don't actually go through with the bite. Maybe it's playing but it is very aggressive behavior.

 

[CheekyBeaks]

I have four pairs and they never fight, I suspect your pair may not be truly compatible if they are fighting. If you find their fighting continues you may need to consider repairing them with more compatible mates.

 

[CheekyBeaks]

Just pulled a couple of images off google

The first is what a dead egg looks like, a blood ring normally form horizontally...


The second (not a parrot egg but is a good example) shows what a fertile egg looks like very early in incubation before the blood vessels begging to spread.