Newbie with questions on candling eggs

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kjt135

kjt135

Chirping
7 Years
Mar 26, 2012
102
1
89
Small town KY
How do you candle an egg? I mean do you turn it on the side to look, look from the top, If from the top do you turn egg upside down? I really want to learn this stuff I am on my second batch of eggs {none of my first hatched} Also if one goes bad will it wreck the whole batch if not removed? Please help have more questions just can't think of all them right now. Thanks for all the help.
 
Don't worry, I am here to help!

Candling eggs 101:

1. For starters, you will want a really bright LED flashlight. Others work well but an LED tends to be best.
2. Go to a dark room, or make the room completely dark. Best to do at night.
3. Take the flashlight in one hand, and the egg in the other. Place the egg, blunt egg (or large) down towards the flashlight. That's where the air sack is, and it makes it easier to see the developing embryo that way.
4. Hold your hand firmly around the egg, as to block all other light, but not too tough where you'll crack the egg
5. Bask in the glory that is the embryo.

It is best to remove a dead egg or a non-developing one. As they can explode, or grow bacteria, that ends up contaminating the other eggs.

I usually candle on days: 4, 7, 11, 14, and 18. I remove all the unfertilized eggs at day 7, and the dead embryos at day 14. You can tell a dead embryo from the others usually because they aren't as far along as the others will ahead.

I have some pics of my candling an egg, it isn't the best, but it shows how it's done:



See the light being put towards the bottom of the egg? The tiny black dot in the center is the eye.
 
Last edited:
Ok, here's what I do.

I bought a couple of small, really bright LED flashlights (from Costco, if memory serves). They weren't very expensive, and have been handy for other stuff.

I put the flashlight in the bottom of my hand, and then the egg, air sac (fat side) down, like so:



Then, I turn off the lights and put them closer together, sealing off the flashlight so that all light goes up, into the egg, like so (except that I didn't seal it off perfectly in this picture):



Hope that helps.

Here's an egg I candled yesterday, at 5 days along:
 
There's a really great thread on candling day by day. It shows what you should see each day, and also shows non-developing eggs, as well as a blood ring/bacterial ring.


But, generally speaking, from day 3 or so on, seeing veins is good. I've lost chicks along the way, and within a day or so, those veins disappear, and there's just a darker blob, no veining, like this:



This is a picture I took of a blood ring, but it's not the best picture- the egg was a darker green, and very hard to candle.
 

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