Anyone pleasr advise?

[JmzMc]

I am candling brown eggs on day 7 and I can barely see anything at all.

I think I can see veins and there is 100% air sac development but it's a very dark yolk. I can see maybe some dark spots where development would be but why are the yolks so dark at this stage?

No blood ring etc just very difficult to see.

Advice? Is the air sac development a good sign that they are growing and alive?

 

[Susan Skylark]

Air sac probably just means they are losing moisture (infertile eggs have them too!). The yolk will look shadowy in a dark egg and the shadow will grow as the chick develops until you can’t see much but air cell. If you have development just let them go and check again in a few days.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

I don’t even bother candling dark eggs until they are 10+ days. I sniff check them once in a while and then wait.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Is the air sac development a good sign that they are growing and alive?

The air sac develops as they age and lose moisture through the porous shell. It doesn't matter if the egg is fertile or not, incubated or not. The drier the environment where it is kept the bigger the air sac gets. The air sac should have nothing to do with whether it is developing or not.

My green eggs can be hard to see inside. I candle at 7 days just from curiosity, trying to get an idea of whether they are developing or not. But even with the ones where I can see I leave them all in until lockdown. Then at 18 days I candle them again and remove any that I can tell for sure are not developing. They are not going to hatch so I remove them to clear some of the clutter in the incubator during hatch.

I never candle under a broody hen, just in the incubator. And, like HollowOfWisps, I sniff them to see if I can smell any going bad.