When we candled the shipped eggs, we were looking for rolling air cells and twisted chalazae, just to give us an idea of how badly roughed up the eggs were. We use a homemade candler, which is an old piece of 4" metal ductwork with a compact florescent lightbulb on one end and the other end covered in opaque soft black plastic and a hole in the middle, so that the plastic kind of seals around the egg a bit. The duct is like 3 feet long so we don't overheat the eggs. We can only candle in full dark, too.
You're right, there's nothing to see as far as development. The best way to see the difference between a detached air sac and twisted insides and an undamaged egg is to use one of your own fresh eggs as an example of a non-twisted egg. You can go back and forth between the twisted and untwisted eggs and you'll see the difference. The rolling air cells are very clear, as they move around and roll when you turn the egg side to side. Try holding your egg sideways, parallel to the ground when you candle it, and slowly spin it on the short axis. If the bubble is always up, like a compass, you have a detached air cell. Also, you can see when the insides are all twisted up. There are faint shadowy lines running in a twisted pattern all around the inside of the egg that aren't there in an undamaged egg.
We leave our shipped eggs point side down in a cool place (our basement) for 48 hours before setting them, especially if they have detached air cells. I don't know if it helps or not, but I have learned to do so from people here at BYC that say it helps to reattach the cells. If I am setting eggs from my own hens, I stick them straight under the hen. I suppose some do sit on our counter point-down in a carton for a day if I'm being picky about setting only certain eggs and it takes more than a day to get enough of the ones I want. We usually get 100% hatches from our own eggs with a broody--except for clear, unfertilized eggs, which I don't count towards my hatch percentage since I don't have enough roosters to keep my flock 100% fertilized all the time and I usually expect that some aren't.
If you're planning to set your shipped eggs under a broody, you might want to contact the seller and have them give you a price for just nine or a dozen. Most sellers will routinely ship a dozen plus a few extras, expecting them to go in an incubator--but you don't want that many when you use a broody. That way you save a bit of money and don't end up with too many eggs to fit under your hen and the horrid decision of which eggs not to set.
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So ear tufts does indicate araucanas? My babies just started laying..so excited
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