Candling Eggs

[Tinyturd]

I am a first time incubator! I am incubating 41 eggs at the moment. These are eggs that I purchased cheaply so, I want to candle them to see if they are fertile or not. My question is, do I take them all out at once and close the incubator to keep it up to temp, or do I pull them out 1 at a time. Please let me know what has worked for yall! Thanks!

 

[HuskerHens18]

I've taken the lid off completely for about 2-4 minutes tops.
Except for if I need to candle during lockdown, then I leave the lid ON and candle one at a time.
41 eggs is a lot, so it just depends on how long you think you'll need.
What day are you on? I personally wouldn't suggest candling until day 10. It's much easier to tell if chicks are growing.

 

[Tinyturd]

I'm on day 7. I had to take the lid off on day 4 and add water so I quickly candled 1 and I can already see veins! But I am paranoid about leaving the lid off for too long so I only did 1

 

[HuskerHens18]

I'm on day 7. I had to take the lid off on day 4 and add water so I quickly candled 1 and I can already see veins! But I am paranoid about leaving the lid off for too long so I only did 1

If you think about it, a mother hen gets off the nest to eat, drink, and poo. That could take anywhere around 5 minutes, and her eggs will be fine.
As long as the room temperature isn't under 65°F, I'm sure your eggs will be okay when you candle. I keep my house at 66°F and I still got good hatchrates.

 

[Tinyturd]

If you think about it, a mother hen gets off the nest to eat, drink, and poo. That could take anywhere around 5 minutes, and her eggs will be fine.
As long as the room temperature isn't under 65°F, I'm sure your eggs will be okay when you candle. I keep my house at 66°F and I still got good hatchrates.

Yeah I had considered that, I was just worried that 41 would take me too long. I guess that I could take them out in batches. Thanks for your help!

 

[HuskerHens18]

Yeah I had considered that, I was just worried that 41 would take me too long. I guess that I could take them out in batches. Thanks for your help!

You do whatever makes you comfortable those are good mommy instincts you have!

 

[ScottandSam]

Sam and I work as a team. I usually have camera on phone pulled up and I lift the lid and write notes on each egg. Sam grabs the egg out and candles it, I close lid then
notes, photo and we go one to the next. We did that along with posting on here during the first few hatches and, we learned a ton very quickly.
Scott

 

[Tinyturd]

We candled them last night, 12 at a time! It went quickly and smoothly. 38 out of 41 were definitely on their way to being babies. The other 3 were a bit more difficult, they possibly could be but it was hard to tell. I will wait a bit longer and check those again

 

[aart]

I take out maybe 5-6 at a time, put them in a foam carton and carry to my 'darkroom' for candling.

 

[Tinyturd]

6 out of 41 were duds. Not bad! The rest looked great!