Incubation mistake - did not check water level -currently on day 16

[Daisysduckfarm]

Okay, so I put 5 duck eggs in my incubator (Amazon purchase worked great two summers ago so no worries about machine quality) I just didn’t check the water in the incubator for 16 days!!

I filled the tray with water day 1 when I incubated them…but I honestly completely forgot as these were more meant to be “test eggs” to see if I can tell the different from fertile and non-fertile eggs.

The temperature has kept but I’m wondering how badly I messed up the development of these chicks, considering tbe lack of humidity and the fact that the incubator doesn’t smell great…not like rotten egg

I have taken each egg out individually, left the room and smelled them, inside each has movement just at varying stages

what should I expect?

What should I do other than add water which I did as soon as I noticed

 

[Daisysduckfarm]

Should I anticipate this smell as coming from one of the eggs? I honestly can’t tell as all eggs have movement so what should I look for?

could it just smell weird from running dry?

 

[Island Coppers]

Daisysduckfarm​

Any egg that has movement must be alive, so likely not the source of the smell. There isn't anything you can do now except keep the humidity up and wait. I hatch marans eggs without adding any water for the 19 days and that seems to work well with the high background humidity here. I'll venture a guess and say all of the eggs will hatch. It's really easy in the environment of an incubator to become smelly, any organic material will start decomposing very quickly.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Wet dog, low tide, dehumidifiers, icky drain, dirty dishwasher, rotting organic material in a warm moist environment often smells off but is normal, rotten egg, rancid milk, or dead mouse is a very bad sign and should be obvious, I wouldn’t worry about it. As for humidity, welcome to dry hatching!

 

[Daisysduckfarm]

Wet dog, low tide, dehumidifiers, icky drain, dirty dishwasher, rotting organic material in a warm moist environment often smells off but is normal, rotten egg, rancid milk, or dead mouse is a very bad sign and should be obvious, I wouldn’t worry about it. As for humidity, welcome to dry hatching!

Have you dry hatched before? Anything I should look and prepare for?