Candling Dark Eggs

[catface]

Has anyone had success candling Maran eggs? I've always used a small led flashlight and it's been fine with my light brown eggs but I've got my very first Marans in the incubator and I would like to candle them. Do the commercially made candlers work on them? Brinsea or other brands.
I'd really like to weed out any eggs that aren't developing before they start stinking
Thanks in advance for any info!

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

I don't have experience of Maran eggs. I do have the Brinsea ova view candler though and would reccomend it. I've done some quite dark eggs and quail eggs with it and found it worked well. It's also easy to handle while holding the egg and the rubber seal makes a good fit on the egg. Good luck with your eggs.

ETA Love your avatar pic!!

 

[dheltzel]

I've done dark eggs (Marans and Welsummers) and have not found a light bright enough to see anything useful. I can see the size of the air cell and that becomes easier at the end when the chick blocks all light, so I guess I can see something useful, but never any veining.

As for removing stinky eggs, I haven't found candling that useful. Instead, I take a careful whiff when I'm near the incubator. You can definitely smell a bad egg long before it explodes. Normally, they have hairline cracks that were not noticed when setting the eggs. When they smell, they usually also are weeping a sticky fluid that is visible, so you can find the culprit pretty easily and remove it.

I only had 2 or 3 that went bad all year (out of hundreds set), and none exploded. I have had bad eggs explode when I was not watching closely enough, that taught me to pay more regular attention to the incubator.

I would not bother candling the dark eggs, except to check the air cells. If you pick them up and examine them externally, you will find any bad eggs. Careful handling before incubation (to minimize cracks) will make stinky eggs a very rare problem.

 

[MontanaChickDoc]

The thing I have found that works best even on my darkest marans eggs is my bicycle headlight. It is crazy bright because it's meant to be used for nighttime biking. It has a narrow concave end that channels the beam of light directly into the egg. Even with that though, I can only barely make out veining and movement.

 

[MontanaChickDoc]

It's a Bontrager 800 R...so it has an output of 800 lumens on its highest setting. Downsides...it's about $100 and gets pretty dang hot so I only candle for about 3- 4 seconds per egg. But man talk about seeing details!

 

[Quailegg1]

I am just starting out incubating brown eggs. I am pretty sure they are fertile, but it is day 5 and I have a candler but all I see is a dark blob in the egg (which I think is the yolk?). I should be seeing veins forming but I don't see anything. Is this normal?

 

[tjb]

not sure how dark your eggs are, however, when I incubate my black copper maran eggs, candling is useless... I have been leaving them in right up until hatch if I can't tell a weight change.

 

[feathermaid]

I am just starting out incubating brown eggs. I am pretty sure they are fertile, but it is day 5 and I have a candler but all I see is a dark blob in the egg (which I think is the yolk?). I should be seeing veins forming but I don't see anything. Is this normal?

Hello there! This is an old thread and I don't know much about incubation... you may have better luck posting your questions in a new thread. Some folks view by the start date. I hope you can find out what's going on with your eggs

 

[Quailegg1]

Hello there! This is an old thread and I don't know much about incubation... you may have better luck posting your questions in a new thread. Some folks view by the start date. I hope you can find out what's going on with your eggs

Thanks I will do that!

 

[Quailegg1]

not sure how dark your eggs are, however, when I incubate my black copper maran eggs, candling is useless... I have been leaving them in right up until hatch if I can't tell a weight change.

Thanks for the info! I will just pay attention to weight. I just added 5 more eggs to the incubator today so we shall see in 21 days!