Blue/green eggs...how strong a light to candle?

[hannakat]

I'm having a terrible time trying to candle Ameraucana eggs. What type/strenght of light will work?

We're at day 6 and I took them out for the first time today to candle....can't see anything to indicate growth.

 

[Pascal PicklePants]

I had areally hard time with ameraucana eggs too. I just wait longer, day 10 or so. And even then, i could only see whether the egg was filling up with chick. I never was able to see any veining.

 

[HathawayHens]

I was able to see veining by looking down through the air cell by day 7 or so using a mini mag lite in a very dark room.

 

[sonjab314]

I have a 60 lumen LED light and I can see veining but that's about all

 

[hannakat]

ummmm........ gonna keep trying I guess! I'm using a pretty powerful LED light but I ain't seeing anything.

 

[dretd]

I have EE eggs too. I just candled them last night with a home-made candler. I used a 35 watt halogen desk lamp with a cut-down mouse pad over the rim to block all light. I cut a 1 inch aperture and put it dark side up. I had to have a very dark room to make out anything. When I tried it with some ambient lighting I couldn't see anything.

I was able to see that out of 11 eggs set, one was a yolker and the others look the same with the same amount of shadowing. I could make out veining in 3 of them.

Good luck!

 

[hannakat]

The ingenuity demonstrated on this site never ceases to amaze me

A mouse pad....how cool is that!

Thanks for the suggestions.... I will win the battle of the dark shelled egg!

 

[HighNDryFarm]

I had a hard time with my Ameraucana's too, when I candled, those were the one's that had the most question marks on. All but one hatched but I was only clear on 2. Next time I'm going to take some of the advice here for a better candler.

 

[hinkjc]

The most important thing is making sure the room is dark enough. It has to be pitch black to see in some eggs really well. I usually wait until day 10 too for darker or thicker shelled eggs. Typically if there's an air cell and it isn't bright inside, it's growing. Good luck!

 

[HathawayHens]

Quote:
Agreed re the ambient lighting... even the tv on in the next room makes it too hard for me to see through.

Hope you can see stuff soon... for me it became very apparent at about 7 days that four were yolkers... cracked them, and they were... then one developed a blood ring and lost its veins, cracked and it was early death... then one last one had lost its veins and seemed like a smaller dark area with blood pooling... also a dead chick, with the insides on the outside. Kinda glad that one did not make it. At any rate, I think my point is to use a super dark room and to compare the eggs to one another. The lady I got mine from said just to shine the mag light down onto the top through the air cell, and you can see veins all around. That does seem to work, but I hold them, too.

LOL Good luck!!