Candling Eggs

[alex]

I was just wondering how you candle eggs. Thank you for all the help anyone gives!
-alex

 

[4H kids and mom]

My daughter and I made our own candling box and it works great. We used a box about 12x9x10, a 25 watt light bulb, a brooder lamp without the clamp and reflector, and duct tape (lol). Oh, and a store bought egg to trace the correct shape for the hole on top.

We cut a small hole in the side panal and rigged (ok, duct taped lol) the brooder lamp to come in from the hole. Then we cut the egg-sized hole on the top of the box at the furthest point from where the light is (so you don't over heat the egg). Put some duct tape around the edges of the hole (because you want the hole large enough to illuminate the whole egg, but small enough so the egg doesn't fall right through). Then we took a scewer and poked holes in the back of the box for ventilation, and you're done!

To candle, you need a dark room. The darker the better. You take the egg (we use latex gloves when we handle our incubating eggs) and place it on the egg hole, and turn on the light. You will see the air pocket, and developing embroyo (if its a fertile, incubated egg) or you can use the candler to check eating eggs for meat or blood spots too.

Here is the link to my thread with our candling photos from last night. We are on Day 8 now with our bator eggs. Hope I've helped!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=85794#p85794

 

[jimnjay]

There are lots of good ways to make your own candler very cheaply. I use a mini mag light flashlight dialed down to a very fine point of light. Shine it on the large end of the eggs and rotate slowly. You much be in a darkened room. Also try the search feature and enter canding, you will get lots of great posts describing many different approaches.