In a purely scientific analysis, that first picture clearly shows a smiley face. That hen is LAUGHING over our confusion!An egg from today from the theta-shape hen is now back to more what I'd been seeing from her before the thetas started. You can see some of the theta shape is still there but it's more wonky than that. I had been interpreting this as infertile but it is quite strange. I don't know if it makes any difference, but this hen is a giant cochin cross (I don't know the other half of the cross). The rooster is also a cochin cross with an unknown.
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Meanwhile for comparison, these other 3 eggs from different hens who are with the same rooster.
Infertile from a purebred cochin hen who does not mate with the roo.
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Fertile from another pure cochin hen; I am incubating two of these eggs right now. Both eggs in the incubator are showing good development with one week left to go.
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And then I got a pacman today from 4th pure cochin hen that has been giving me a roughly 50/50 mix of clear fertile and infertile (tried to incubate 2 of hers and they were duds...). That's the first occurrence of a weird shape from someone other than my cochin cross hen. Maybe it's something to do with the roo???
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It seems like I have two main possibilities:
- Something about the blastodisc is just mucked up, rendering it unable to develop even if fertilized. This would be an issue from the hen.
- I have one of the fast-acting lethal traits lurking in one or more individuals. This could be from either parent or both...