Is it ever a good idea to cut a dehydrated, tough shelled but fertile egg?

[Spyral]

I'm no expert, but it sounds like they were possibly not fertile at all. Some infertile eggs do grow and swell like fertile eggs. If it was several weeks into incubation, there should be signs of an embryo, although early on I'm sure the blastoderm is really tiny. Other people have reported white mass in their (supposedly) infertile eggs.

[craftery]

I had a similar experience today. Out of the two eggs in my first garg clutch, one hatched three weeks ago and the other deflated last night.

The larger egg hatched out a perfect garglet. I thought it was a dud originally because of the way it candled, turns out I was wrong. The smaller egg looked healthy and normal when candled, but it finally collapsed. I cut it open today to reveal a white, opaque gel without any sign of an embryo. I'm pretty sure it was an infertile egg. I started to get worried about it a couple of days ago when I noticed some darker areas on the egg. I was a little down about losing the egg, but I found a new clutch buried this afternoon.