Found fertilized egg

MrNoName

Hatching
Mar 28, 2025
2
0
2
I get eggs from a friend and one of my eggs I noticed looked weird when I went to eat it so I put it up to the light and saw that it had an embryo or whatever it’s called and so I wanted to know if it’s possible to hatch it even though it was in the fridge? It spent about 5 days in the fridge before I noticed it. I don’t know how to post a picture so I added an Imgur link here. Please take a look and let me know if it’s still viable to hatch.

 
I would say no because it would've needed to be at 99.5 °F for those 5 days. That being said i also don't see veins in the picture. Do you see any movement (I doubt it but figured I had better ask)
To me theis looks like (if it was a developing chick) that it stopped developing.
 
I've hatched eggs that were refrigerated before. I don't know how long they'd been refrigerated, but I had 11 out of 12 develop. They were refrigerated at least 6 hours and possibly most of a day.

I've also hatched eggs that were laid in weather less than 40F (approximately refrigerator temperature) and I'm pretty certain weren't found that same day.

And then there's the number of birds I've hatched from eggs that were shipped to me in cold and even freezing weather. My postal lady likes to leave them on the driveway in front of my door if I forget to request "hold for pickup". Generally I know when to look, but occasionally they sit there for a few hours.

Long story short. I can confirm what @Yardmom says.
 
Yes you can hatch undeveloped eggs with cold exposure (fridge or winter), development rates seem unaffected but hatch rates can drop 25-50%. However a developing egg that suffers a severe and prolonged temp drop will die within a couple hours (or sooner if really cold). It would be interesting to see inside your egg, but it is not viable after days in the fridge.
 

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