Candling for blood spots

[Sfraker]

I am going to start selling my duck eggs this summer at a local farmers market. One of my girls seems to be sensitive to older feed. Anytime I buy feed in bulk I get blood spot eggs as I am working my way through the bottom of the last bag of feed. I check the feed every time I feed the ducks, I have not seen any mold, mildew, excessive dust and the feed smells good. But after the last few times that this occurred I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

I have started buying less feed at a time (more trips to the feed store grrrr…) I rarely see bloodspots in the eggs anymore. However, I would feel better selling the eggs if I could check them first.

My parent’s friends were telling me that they candle their chicken eggs for bloodspots before they sell them. Does anyone know what to look for or have pics of an egg being candled that had a bloodspot? The spots are generally pretty little so I don’t know if it will show up or not. We are going to candle each egg before we crack it open when we are cooking to try to see if we notice anything out of the ordinary, however a picture would speed up my learning curve.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Niche Flock]

Hi! I know this post is quite old but recently I experienced myself and thought maybe if I share my experience it will help others.

I sell duck eggs at a local store and am very particular about my egg washing process. I collect and immediately refrigerate, pointy side down so as to keep the air sac situated on the top of the egg. When it's time to wash, I fill up the sink, let them soak, brush off grime and poo, set them to dry on a towel, then dry, candle, pack and refrigerate before I bring them in to sell.

I always candle my eggs, it's a great way of finding cracks that may not have been obvious in a water or float test. I use a basic bright travel flashlight and simply go around the outside of all the eggs to make sure I don't see anything suspicious. Black eggs are rancid, bubbles on the inside that move are suspicious and I don't sell those either. Sometimes you might see strange things, like I did recently!
This is a normal egg candling for me (egg looks yellow once illuminated) then I candled another egg and immediately noticed it had a red glow. Suspicious. Upon cracking the egg I noticed a fairly large and disturbing blood spot. Really freaking, but I know these things happen, especially when it's cold (nights have dipped to 5° recently and daytime in the 20's).
Could be other factors that played a role in this, so I'm closely monitoring my girls.

Hope these photos help.