Muscovy egg with dead chick in pen.

[Lin71]

Hi
Looking for some advice. My muscovy hen is sitting on eggs under the shed. I built a pen around it so she can eat and bathe without stress. I think eggs due to hatch this week although it has been hard to candle them properly and still dont know how many she has due to position. This morning there was a broken egg with dead duckling inside it in the pen. Has she kicked it out because it died during hatching or has something got at the nest? She seems to still be on the nest but I have to crawl on my stomach to see so cant tell what going on
Can this happen if chick dies?
TIa

 

[BelovedBirds]

Hi
Looking for some advice. My muscovy hen is sitting on eggs under the shed. I built a pen around it so she can eat and bathe without stress. I think eggs due to hatch this week although it has been hard to candle them properly and still dont know how many she has due to position. This morning there was a broken egg with dead duckling inside it in the pen. Has she kicked it out because it died during hatching or has something got at the nest? She seems to still be on the nest but I have to crawl on my stomach to see so cant tell what going on
Can this happen if chick dies?
TIa

I imagine if it had been a predator, say a rat or something, that the duckling would've been eaten, or carried away- I don't see any wounds or anything. It looks to me as though the egg was crushed possibly pecked at, and was discarded from the nest.
That's just a guess though. I don't have any experience with broodies, well, with actual hatching eggs at least.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I'm thinking the egg got crushed it happened here. Hopefully, that will be the only one. Sometimes when they have so many in a small space this can happen.