Question: Are my Axolotl eggs alive?

Hello, I'm new here and new to the world of Axolotls and would really appreciate some advice.

I have been lucky enough to have been given two axolotl eggs/spawn from my friend who owns two (excuse me for the possible novice colouring term) black axolotls. The eggs (two of an estimated 300) were discovered in the "cave" within the tank on Thursday the 24th of May and were then extracted and moved into another tank after the axolotls had been separated to prevent further breeding. My friend gave us, as he described, "slower developing" ones as I had only committed to taking on the eggs after he threatened to send all the eggs to the pet shop and so he wanted to give me enough time to prepare a tank etc for the hatchlings.

We have bought a tank and prepared it in a way recommended by numerous websites, notably this one and axolotl.org whist keeping the eggs in a separate "tub" of dechlorinated water which is changed regularly. We inherited the two eggs on Wednesday the 30th of May and transferred them from a water bottle of dechlorinated water to the tub on the 31st. Initially this tub was kept on a windowsill with the blind down for a couple of days but we felt this became too cold and the water was very cold to the touch which we didn't feel would encourage the tadpoles to grow or hatch. We have since moved them into an airy cupboard and wished for any further developments but seen very few if any at all. We feel the tadpoles have perhaps grown in size by becoming "fatter" and have developed a more fetus/kidney bean shape, but we are worried that this is more us wishing than actual development. In fact we're very scared there's no life at all due to the dates and many saying it only takes 2 weeks to hatch tadpoles.

We have taken a few pictures, the more recent of which I will upload when I get a camera lead, but these are couple of poor quality camera phone ones taken on the 31st of May:




We are planning on buying a thermometer to test the water as it is still quite cold and I've read it needs to be at around 17 degrees which it most certainly isn't. Under a microscope you can make out an "eye" (we think) or a spot on both tadpoles and as I say, they do appear "fatter" (more pictures will be uploaded later).

We are mainly wondering if there are any signs of telling if there is still life within these two eggs and if so what are the best methods of maintaining it. When should we call it a day and maybe invest in some more eggs? We are hoping that our care has been sufficient enough to keep them alive but we are really losing hope as they haven't began to elongate or anything in the past few days and provided the dates are correct they'll be nearly two weeks old.

All replies are appreciated,
Fingers crossed for our babies!

May 24 was 2 weeks before you posted these pictures. The degree of development does seem slow for that amount of time. They look alive to me, although it's hard to tell from the photos.

I would suggest getting some of the other (of the 300) offspring. There's not much point trying to raise outliers (slow-growers). Even if they hatch, you may be raising genetically poor animals.

Most likely. I have some at the moment and it took them 3 and a half weeks to hatch (which is quite a while) and some of my 'late developers' are now hatching due to me heating my tank a bit. I have only put a heater in my room so I could warm the environment around it. I would recommend having some source of heat in the same room as the babies because the optimum temp. for them to hatch is between 14 and 18 degrees C. Try to heat the tank, it WILL speed up the developing if they are alive.

Bearolotl

P.S. Please add to my reputation!