Candling a RIR egg pictures?

[silkiechicken]

Your light looks bright enough, you should be able to see clear veining by day 5.

 

[JakRat]

Can you do any damage while candling? Like say I pick up an egg from my silkie, candle it, then just put it back under her willthis cause any problems?

 

[silkiechicken]

As long as you're quick, it's fine.

The big downfall from candling comes from over doing it. Every time you open the bator the humidity drops, every time you take an egg out from under a hen to room temp, it cools just a bit in a relatively low humidity environment for the most part. This can cause excessive evaporation of the water content of eggs, and for an ideal hatch, the egg has to lose about 10% of it's water weight. Too much more or less and you can have a less viable hatch. Some people also worry about over handling the eggs, getting hand oils onto shells that can clog pores, or introducing bacteria which could make their way through the pores in the shell while sitting in a warm humid environment.

I've done many many many hatches and adjust humidity levels based on how fast the air cell is growing. I usually only candle a few times to remove duds, day 4/5ish, 10ish, 18th. I don't normally candle daily as I've done for educational purposes since I figure there is no point in introducing extra environmental variables to an already artificial process can be picky.

The only problem taking an egg from a silkie would be you'll have a temporally angry hen. LOL

ETA: Guess a small risk would be over heating the egg if you hold it to a hot light source like a projector or halogen light too long. Egg whites will coagulate/cook/denature at 140F. If that light you are pressing the egg against is hotter than 140 for any significant time, you do risk cooking a portion of the egg. But in 99.9% of cases, this isn't going to be an issue with a light intended to be held in the hand.

 

[MyNameIs86]

Um. I don't see why there would be any harm?
imagine the eggs being under the hen. i highly doubt the hen will sit on the egg 24/7 until they hatch. i believe the chicken gets up to eat etc.

 

[silkiechicken]

Um. I don't see why there would be any harm?
imagine the eggs being under the hen. i highly doubt the hen will sit on the egg 24/7 until they hatch. i believe the chicken gets up to eat etc.

That is true, hen will leave the eggs 5-15 every day, bring back poopy feet and all sorts of goodies with them to the nest. I open the bator 3x a day to rotate eggs since I have no auto turner, but mine is home made and gets back to temp in literally 30 seconds with 100W's heating a cubic foot of air. Depending on your bator, especially the beginners styrobators that many have, with a 25W element on a touchy thermostat, when you close that lid, it can take a long time for the environment to stabilize vs a hen who just sits back down just like she got up. I've heard of people's styro's taking 2 hours to stabilze in temps after they open them. For beginners, there are already lots of hurdles to a successful hatch, and I personally reccomend hands off approaches until the user has perfected hatching in the first place. Less variables, easier troubleshooting.