Candle recommendations

[lazy gardener]

I like practical gifts of things I will buy anyway so for under the Christmas tree I want an egg candle so that I can see inside the shells of the unhatched eggs of each clutch next spring when the others from that clutch are 2 day old chicks. If the eggs are still alive I will leave them with mama if they are undeveloped or dead I will take them so she can focus if the chicks. I also need to be able to check duck eggs for double yolks so I don't allow those in a clutch for a broody duck, as I have 2 ducks that have had successful hatched prior to coming to my house.

I have some darker eggs. RIR, EE, etc

I'd recommend that you save your money. A candler is super easy to make. I simply use a little LED flashlight with fresh batteries, and occlude all light from the egg with my hand, except for a beam shining through the air cell. Any egg that is too dark for that to work, I use a table lamp! I take the shade off it, And use a shampoo bottle or a tube of cardboard, covered with tin foil to occlude all light. A pringles can would work well! Put a top on the tube, with an opening large enough to let enough light through so you can see the contents of the egg. Be careful, b/c the lamp method produces quite a lot of heat.

When ever candling, you have to be in a room that is pitch black!!!

You bring up some other questions though. How should I handle the eggs before setting and how many to give her? If they can collect 2 weeks worth of their own lay, I should be able to back track a couple days to give her a full nest.

Best to give her only as many eggs as she can easily cover well. If you don't need more chicks, only let her have 4 - 6 eggs! Save them up, and set them all under her on the same day. Until that time, you can let her satisfy her broodiness with a couple of golf balls, fake eggs, what ever. Mark all eggs, and place them under her at the same time. If you keep other hens away from her, they can't add to her clutch. This way, you'll be assured that her eggs are all the same age, and will hatch on the same day. Around day 14, you can steal them at night, candle them, and remove any duds.

There are articles in the learning center about managing broody hens, as well as candling eggs. My fav. LC article is "hatching eggs 101". A must read, whether you are incubating or going the broody method. It will teach you so very much about care of hatching eggs and their development.

 

[Ridgerunner]

How to handle the eggs? This article gives a lot of insight but in my opinion it goes way overboard. I certainly do not follow all of that but it covers a lot of basics.

https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu...e-Cartwright-Incubating-and-hatching-eggs.pdf

The closer you can come to ideal conditions the longer you can store them and have a good hatch rate. If you get the right temperature, humidity, and turn them you can have really good hatch rates even after storing them for two weeks. I don’t come close. I certainly do not wrap the eggs in Saran Wrap to conserve moisture.

If I am collecting eggs for incubating in winter when it is really cold I try to collect them a few times a day. In warmer weather not so much. I used to take the turner out of my incubator and set that out of direct sunlight from a window and away from an air vent. Eggs go in pointy side down, the fat side with the air cell stays up. Since we now have a house dog I don’t trust I don’t do that anymore. Instead I lay them on a towel in a dresser drawer and hand turn them three times a day when I remember. I lay the eggs on their side and put two different marks on opposite sides so I can tell when they have been turned all the way. The air temperature is in the 70’s F and humidity can be pretty low.

I’ve gotten really good hatch rates with eggs stored for up to a week this way. I number my eggs in the way they are laid so I know which are the oldest. I have not seen any difference in hatch rate in the older eggs versus newer. Your idea of collecting for only a couple of days before you start incubation sounds fabulous.

How many to set? Hens and eggs come in different sizes. Some bantams might struggle to cover 4 regular sized eggs. Who knows how many bantam eggs a large hen can cover? The hen needs to be able to cover all the eggs comfortably for different reasons. When I was a kid we had a hen hide a nest and come out with 18 chicks, so she could cover that many of the size she laid. I’ve had a broody have trouble covering more than ten eggs of the size she laid. I normally set 12 eggs and that usually works out well but each hen can be different.

There is another issue, the chicks grow very quickly. They can fairly soon grow too big for all to fit under her. In summer and warm weather this is not much of an issue, a lot of times all the chicks don’t sleep under her anyway, they may sleep on top of her or next to her. If they need to they can squeeze under her and force another chick out. But in cold weather this could become an issue. Instead of the normal 12 eggs I only put 8 under a broody about a week and a half ago because it is winter. She is one of my larger hens.

 

[kesrchicky16]

How to handle the eggs? This article gives a lot of insight but in my opinion it goes way overboard. I certainly do not follow all of that but it covers a lot of basics.

https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu...e-Cartwright-Incubating-and-hatching-eggs.pdf

The closer you can come to ideal conditions the longer you can store them and have a good hatch rate. If you get the right temperature, humidity, and turn them you can have really good hatch rates even after storing them for two weeks. I don’t come close. I certainly do not wrap the eggs in Saran Wrap to conserve moisture.

If I am collecting eggs for incubating in winter when it is really cold I try to collect them a few times a day. In warmer weather not so much. I used to take the turner out of my incubator and set that out of direct sunlight from a window and away from an air vent. Eggs go in pointy side down, the fat side with the air cell stays up. Since we now have a house dog I don’t trust I don’t do that anymore. Instead I lay them on a towel in a dresser drawer and hand turn them three times a day when I remember. I lay the eggs on their side and put two different marks on opposite sides so I can tell when they have been turned all the way. The air temperature is in the 70’s F and humidity can be pretty low.

I’ve gotten really good hatch rates with eggs stored for up to a week this way. I number my eggs in the way they are laid so I know which are the oldest. I have not seen any difference in hatch rate in the older eggs versus newer. Your idea of collecting for only a couple of days before you start incubation sounds fabulous.

How many to set? Hens and eggs come in different sizes. Some bantams might struggle to cover 4 regular sized eggs. Who knows how many bantam eggs a large hen can cover? The hen needs to be able to cover all the eggs comfortably for different reasons. When I was a kid we had a hen hide a nest and come out with 18 chicks, so she could cover that many of the size she laid. I’ve had a broody have trouble covering more than ten eggs of the size she laid. I normally set 12 eggs and that usually works out well but each hen can be different.

There is another issue, the chicks grow very quickly. They can fairly soon grow too big for all to fit under her. In summer and warm weather this is not much of an issue, a lot of times all the chicks don’t sleep under her anyway, they may sleep on top of her or next to her. If they need to they can squeeze under her and force another chick out. But in cold weather this could become an issue. Instead of the normal 12 eggs I only put 8 under a broody about a week and a half ago because it is winter. She is one of my larger hens.

I was thinking about aming for 10. But I currently have 21 hens and am getting 9-11 eggs a day now that some are almost done with molt. I guess if my Brahmas go broody they could cover more? My ducks I might have to save for a couple days I only have 9 females.

I really appreciate all the advice. I will wait until spring to allow setting since I'm not actuality set up yet.