Candle Quail Eggs

[LeaLandHouse]

Quail eggs are difficult to candle for us...the shells are thick...they're often coloured blue on the inside...We've tried a number of methods...We'd like to know who uses what method to do candeling of the eggs...We'd like to be able to tell if we should be tossing eggs or leaving them in the incubator....
thanks
B and K

 

[Twistedfeather]

I was reading Gail Damerow's Brooding and Raising your own chicks and when I was reading up on candling and came up to a heartbeat monitor device designed to track the embryo's heartbeat (which for a young chicken is at a rapid 250 times per minute) it said it was much more expensive way than using a normal candling device (in my case I use a flashlight) but if this is a common problem when breeding your quail wouldn't it be something to look into?

Are you saying that you can't see it all? Because sometimes darkened embryo's mean the bird is dead.

 

[LeaLandHouse]

We cant even see inside...we've done flashlights...normal lights...We've been thinking of a stethoscope...and were just wanting to know what method Quail enthusiasts have been using...pictures of your contraptions would be helpful too...
thanks

 

[pickledpenny]

I have had amazing results with the flashlight on my iPhone. Not a candler I've tried can compare!

 

[stephstuckman]

I use the light on my iPhone too. My case has a 1/4" hole around the light and the eggs sit there perfectly.

 

[James the Bald]

Only because I'm silly, what day are your eggs on? Because you "can't see anything" doesn't mean that the embryo isn't doing it's thing. I don't know about anyone else, but I only candle once - just before lock down. The reason I do this only once is because the egg shell is so thick, it makes seeing veins very difficult. I have taken a chicken mcnugget lid, traced a dime on it, and cut out the circle. When I place the egg on it, the egg would sit right on top of the hole as I shined an LED flashlight through. The first time I tried candling an egg it was translucent on day 7, and the blotches on the egg make it difficult to see any veins. On day 14 (for pharaohs), any eggs that are completely translucent are tossed, and the others kept in the incubator. I hope this info is of some help.
James

 

[stephstuckman]

I candle mine just to check for cracks on the eggs I plan to sell to eat

 

[Amy9977]

I candle with the light on my phone which is super bright - but I stick a ring of blue-tack around the light first, so the eggs don't come in contact with the hard plastic. I find that I cant see a thing in some because the shells are simply too thick (thickness definitely varies even between same birds), but I candled my coturnix eggs today, only on day 5, and four out of ten had shells thin enough to show the beautiful veins developing underneath

But yes those brown spots are annoying!

 

[ChickenLegs13]

I use the light on my iPhone too. My case has a 1/4" hole around the light and the eggs sit there perfectly.

Same here. The most useful function I've found for my iPhone.

 

[cookiesdaddy]

Only because I'm silly, what day are your eggs on? Because you "can't see anything" doesn't mean that the embryo isn't doing it's thing. I don't know about anyone else, but I only candle once - just before lock down. The reason I do this only once is because the egg shell is so thick, it makes seeing veins very difficult. I have taken a chicken mcnugget lid, traced a dime on it, and cut out the circle. When I place the egg on it, the egg would sit right on top of the hole as I shined an LED flashlight through. The first time I tried candling an egg it was translucent on day 7, and the blotches on the egg make it difficult to see any veins. On day 14 (for pharaohs), any eggs that are completely translucent are tossed, and the others kept in the incubator. I hope this info is of some help.
James

Instead of tossing the eggs that glow, I boil them and save and feed them as supplement to the chicks when they hatch. I read somewhere that more protein is good for them the early days. Is this a bad idea?