This is my first time incubating. I have 7 "barnyard mix" chicken eggs (I started with 12) in a Little Giant Still Air Incubator in my bedroom, much to my husband's chagrin. 
They are on Day 10. I've done tons of Google searching for candling images, advice on possible "bad eggs", etc.
Yahoo Voices had a really good article on candling, I thought: http://voices.yahoo.com/when-candle-chicken-eggs-5933516.html?cat=7.
Anyway, last night I was getting worried because I didn't feel like I was seeing many veins in the eggs, so I did my obsessive internet searching, of course, and candled the eggs. Didn't see much. Today I was showing my MIL, and my daughter, how cool candling is. I just use my hand and a flashlight for now. In my first days of candling, I would have the egg on its side, rolling it around, then decided that might be too disturbing to the embryo. Now I just hold the egg upright, air pocket (big end) up, flashlight underneath. I explained to them how the dark part, up top below the air pocket, was the chick! My daughter said, "Shine the light on top of the egg!" Oh yeah, duh So I very carefully held the egg from the top end and shined the flashlight down into it. I was able to see very good veins in that egg that way! Tonight I candled again, and two had moving chicks inside! The others, you know, hard to exactly tell- two look like they might end up being "clears"- one is a Copper Maran egg so hard to tell with that one because it's a dark chocolate brown.
Happy Hatching!
They are on Day 10. I've done tons of Google searching for candling images, advice on possible "bad eggs", etc.Yahoo Voices had a really good article on candling, I thought: http://voices.yahoo.com/when-candle-chicken-eggs-5933516.html?cat=7.
Anyway, last night I was getting worried because I didn't feel like I was seeing many veins in the eggs, so I did my obsessive internet searching, of course, and candled the eggs. Didn't see much. Today I was showing my MIL, and my daughter, how cool candling is. I just use my hand and a flashlight for now. In my first days of candling, I would have the egg on its side, rolling it around, then decided that might be too disturbing to the embryo. Now I just hold the egg upright, air pocket (big end) up, flashlight underneath. I explained to them how the dark part, up top below the air pocket, was the chick! My daughter said, "Shine the light on top of the egg!" Oh yeah, duh
So I very carefully held the egg from the top end and shined the flashlight down into it. I was able to see very good veins in that egg that way! Tonight I candled again, and two had moving chicks inside! The others, you know, hard to exactly tell- two look like they might end up being "clears"- one is a Copper Maran egg so hard to tell with that one because it's a dark chocolate brown.Happy Hatching!
