candling eggs

[huckaberry3]

Does anyone candle quail eggs? If so how? I have tried a couple of times and see nothing thru the dark shells. I got coturnix quail eggs and a candler that came with my incubator.

 

[Starkasm]

I've had this same problem. I have quail eggs in the incubator about a week now and I can't tell :/
Tagging along on your thread to see others' advice.

 

[huckaberry3]

At least I'm not alone on this journey.

 

[Starkasm]

Hopefully someone will come along and help!


They have a real short incubation time so I figure worst case scenario I'll just incubate them til the end and hope for the best.... If something pops out I'll know it was fertile

 

[FinaC]

I just set my first batch of quail eggs and will have to candle them on Sunday. I'll post again and let you know if I get any results.

 

[James the Bald]

Huck and Stark. Welcome to the world of quail. OK, here is one answer to your question. Some members candle every 7 days, but quail eggs are too small to see the veins growing, so I pass on candling that early, and don't want to be handling the eggs excessively. I only candle on day 14, at the start of lockdown for Coturnix.
Here is how I do it: I have a small cardboard box, and traced a dime on the bottom. Then using an exacto knife, I cut a hole that I will place the egg on. I did this for my 6 year old so he wouldn't drop any eggs, and it worked OK. The lights in the room have to be either off or dimmed. I place the egg small end down on the hole, then I use a LED flashlight to hold at the bottom of the box. If the light shines right through and the eggs has a "glow", then the egg is not fertile and can be discarded. If you can not see through the egg, then it has a chick inside and you can place it back into the incubator for lockdown. If there is any doubt as to weather or not an egg is fertile, then continue with the incubation.
Here is a link that both of you find interesting. About half way down the article, there is a photo of a chicken egg in somebody's hand being candled. I try to keep all of my eggs in the same direction they were being incubated... the author of this article didn't say why they held the egg the way they did.
I used to use a "candler", but found that they put out a lot of heat after 4 dozen eggs. I hope this was some assistance to you.
James

 

[Starkasm]

Thank you James! This is just what we needed .

 

[huckaberry3]

Thank you for the info

 

[huckaberry3]

Well I must be doing something right. I was looking in the incubator tonight and a couple eggs were moving.

 

[FinaC]

I tried candling this past Sunday but couldn't really see anything. Just candled again tonight out of curiosity and I was able to see dark masses and veins in about a dozen of the eggs. Some of them I could tell were definitely infertile and some I couldn't see through the shell we'll enough. Eggs go on lock down this coming Monday. Keeping my fingers crossed.