Candling 'fresh' eggs. - What am I looking for?

[PacsMan]

Our first flock is well on its way to settling down. We’ve got another 9 or 10 weeks and then we’ll have to figure out what to do with the eggs!

I home teach a really great friend of ours. He’s an ‘old timer’ and he told me Sunday (when we were, of course, talking about chickens) that when he was a teenager, their family had 5 coops and 1,200 birds! I had no idea. I’ve known him for 10 years and never knew…

Anyway, he said that one of his jobs was to candle all of the eggs before they were sold. He said they looked for meat spots.

I know people talk about candling eggs at 7-10 days while incubating them, but what am I looking for if I candle fresh eggs? I ~don’t~ want to sell a dozen eggs and have something nasty come out.

I’ve seen blood spots, and know they have nothing to do with having a fertile or not. But what are meat spots?

Can you see a blood spot by candling and egg?

And how do the big corporations candle all of these eggs? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a blood spot from store bought eggs.

 

[warmfuzzies]

They do it at egg factories too. But you would have to have a really bright candler, I have looked and never seen anything. Most home growers don't do it. The spots dont matter, it is just asthetics.

The other thing they candle for is to check the freshness, which is done by measuring the size of the aircell.

 

[Farm Frenzy]

A meat spot would look like a little black spot floating around inside the egg. Sometimes you can see them...sometimes not. They probably do it just because it grosses some people out, but it's not necessary.

 

[gritsar]

I've seen them candle commercial eggs on TV. Conveyer belt system. They do it for the reason Frenzy mentioned.

 

[Ms~Silkie~Girl]

i was wondering the same thing PacsMan!

 

[debilorrah]

When I candle mine, I am looking for veins or movement closer to the hatch date.