Candling Eggs and Floating

[CT Coop]

I have a GQF Sportsman and have 71 eggs in the bator on day 10. I am fairly new to candling but have pics of what things should look like to compare to, but they all look so different! Some of them appear to have the right size air cell, but things appear to be floating within the egg. I haven't seen this before, can someone explain if this is right or not?

 

[hysop]

Can you take a picture? They may be infertile, but we can’t know for sure without a picture.

 

[CT Coop]

They are definitely not infertile as I do see blood vessels, but I've never seen things floating before. I will try to get a pic the next time I take them out of the Incy on Day 14.

 

[JaeG]

You will be able to see the dark eye at this stage. It also depends on which way the chick is lying as to what you will see. Make sure you rearrange your eggs every now and then in the incubator to even out any cold or warm spots which will speed up some eggs and slow down others.

 

[CT Coop]

OK...I did rearrange as I candled. Part of the problem may be that some are very dark Welsummer eggs, so hopefully I'll see more on Day 14....I really don't want to open the incy again until then. Hopefully, it will be a better picture then and I can take photos!@

 

[hysop]

Oh it could be the bean moving and floating about. Is it black?

 

[CT Coop]

Well, it is dark, but I wouldn't say black. I have a new question....how often can I candle and not endanger the eggs? Today is day 12 and I was going to wait until day 14, but I would really like to take a look today and try to take pics. What do you all think?

 

[hysop]

You can candle daily if you’d like. People usually only candle on day 7, 14 and 18 but you can do it every day. In my first batch I candled almost daily because I was excited to see. But on my second batch I can wait it out. On my first batch out of 21 fertile eggs only 6 didn’t make it but they were fully formed so it had nothing to do with candling daily.

 

[CT Coop]

Isn't it sad though when they are fully formed My last batch I had 21 in the incy and only 5 hatched....I wanted to learn from the experience and found that all of them were fully formed....I think it was a humidity issue, so this time I'm being very careful.

 

[CT Coop]

OK...I candled again (Day 12), but I think the floating stuff, was actually chick movement. Some were clearly infertile and/or damaged in shipping. Most locally sourced eggs are progressing, but here's an odd one. Most air cells are a clearly defined circle and not like this one, which goes up on both sides, kinda like butterfly wings.