Candling after day 18?

[Lindsaylouwho]

I have a forced air incubator and I’m on day 19, do y’all ever candle to make sure everything is going smoothly? It’s my first time and I don’t want to mess up. I have to crack edge to add a little water for my humidity to stay in range, not daily or anything. I just wonder if I could candle them to make sure they aren’t quitters? Thanks for any advice.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

I have a forced air incubator and I’m on day 19, do y’all ever candle to make sure everything is going smoothly? It’s my first time and I don’t want to mess up. I have to crack edge to add a little water for my humidity to stay in range, not daily or anything. I just wonder if I could candle them to make sure they aren’t quitters? Thanks for any advice.

At this point, the only good candling can do is to identify whether or not there's an internal pip - but it won't tell you if it's a quitter. You can't see anything because the chick completely fills the egg, except the air cell. Some chicks don't internally pip into the air cell; they'll pip to the outside when they're ready.

And don't worry about endangering them by taking off the lid to add water. The momentary disruption to their humidity and temperature will be restored quickly when the lid's back on. Think of a broody hen on her nest. She leaves the nest once or twice a day to eat, drink and poop, right? You're disrupting them less than she does.

I took the lid off my incubator for 10-15 minutes at a time with the last batch, to weigh them, candle, mark size of air cells, turn them, add water, and so on ... frequently up to Day 20. Out of 26 eggs, I had 26 hatch successfully.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have a different opinion, mainly because I have shrink-wrapped eggs before. Not many, just a couple. Certainly not every time I open the incubator. Since it is something I believe can happen I consider it good practice to unnecessarily take a risk. If I have an emergency inside the incubator I will open it to deal with that emergency and take that risk because it does not happen that often but it's not something I do on a whim.

do y’all ever candle to make sure everything is going smoothly?

I candle them as I go into lockdown and remove any obvious clears. Then I leave them alone. What information are you going to get if you candle them after that? What decisions are you going to make? Candling them is not going to help them hatch. I don't see any benefit and I do believe there is a potential for harm. A small potential but it is still there. I do not consider impatience or curiosity as an emergency.

Even if one has quit that I could not identify at lockdown I see no reason to remove it. It is not going to harm the other eggs just because it is a quitter. If bacteria gets inside the egg it will grow whether the embryo is alive or not. If the embryo is alive the bacteria will kill the embryo. If the egg does not have bacteria inside it then it can't multiply and cause a rotten egg. If you smell the rotten egg smell that is an emergency and you need to act. But you don't determine which egg is rotten by candling, you do that by smelling them.

I can see candling them just before you toss them to check them out. You are making a decision then.

I have to crack edge to add a little water for my humidity to stay in range, not daily or anything.

I connected a couple of accordion straws with tape and add water without opening the incubator by putting that through a vent hole and squirting water in with a syringe. With the accordion straws I can bend it to reach any reservoir. I don't know if you could do that with your specific incubator.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

I connected a couple of accordion straws with tape and add water without opening the incubator by putting that through a vent hole and squirting water in with a syringe. With the accordion straws I can bend it to reach any reservoir. I don't know if you could do that with your specific incubator.

I LOVE this idea! Thank you. My IncuView incubator has this challenge and I'd been trying to think of a way to add water internally without bothering to lift the lid. You've got it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think this is one of the few gadgets like this that I actually came up with on my own. Most of them I steal from others.