WHY CAN'T WE DO CAESAREAN SECTIONS ON EGGS.

Caescarean section.
by Ironsun on Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:53 am

WHY CAN'T WE DO CAESAREAN SECTIONS ON EGGS.

Bird embryo's are not supported by placentas as mammals are. Instead there is a network of blood vessels that line the shell and ends up in an umbilical cord that is attacted to the quail at it's "belly button".

When the quail is ready to hatch, it breaks into the air cell and begins to breathe. This triggers the network of supporting blood vessels to begin to shut down. All the blood from these vessels must drain into the quail before it is ready to hatch.

The quail struggles and movement helps this process and by the time it is ready to hatch there is no more blood in the vessels that line the shell.

If the shell is broken before this network of blood vessels has stopped functioning and one or more of these vessels is damaged, there will be bleeding. Baby birds don't have a lot of spare blood and this can be dangerious.

When a mammal is born, the umbilical cord is usually crushed before the baby is born, so it does not bleed. During a caesarean section, the cord is clamped before cutting for the same reason.

It's simply not possable to clamp the cord of a baby bird before breaking the shell, so opening the egg while that network of blood vessels is still functioning will cause many to be torn which would be the same as tearing open (or removing) the placenta while the baby is still using it. The baby will bleed to death.

I hope people read this and think about what your doing when opening eggs, You may think your helping the chicks, but your not.

Derek.

Very Interesting. thankyou.