Candling Outside During the Day

[amorgan]

I have a 2 part question. This is only my 2nd time hatching under a broody hen, I usually would just get day old chicks and use a brooder box. The first time I just let my hen only have 5 eggs, I never candled, and I moved her to a separate pen. I ended up breaking 4 broody hens last year by moving them, so this year I’m trying to leave her be. So my problem is, she’s sitting on 15 eggs and I basically have to kick her out of the box for her to get food/water/exercise while I check out her nest, otherwise she’s trying to peck the flesh off my hands! What kind of flashlight setup/contraption is best to candle eggs during the daylight hours? (Some of the eggs are BCM). Secondly, I did manage to see some veining in at least 3 eggs, but I had many others that I couldn’t quite tell what I was seeing. Is it ok to have eggs under the same hen that are potentially in different stages of development? I only took away a few from her that were clear, but the remaining 15 seem to maybe have something going on. Thoughts?

 

[TamsSharp]

I took eggs into another another shed next to my coop to candle them using a flashlight app on my phone. Marked the ones that were obviously developing with an X on the end. The ones that were possibly developing just farther behind I drew a ring around the egg so they would be easy to identify without picking up each one. Then checked the questionable ones again 12 days later. Found 2 duds so I removed them.
I had three hens that were broody so I divided mine between them depending on how far along the eggs were in development.
Leaving all of them with one hen you take the chance of them abandoning the eggs after some of the chicks hatch. If you have her in a brood box she may not abandon them.

 

[Kayakrose]

This is my first time using a broody hen. It was a rough start because she sat on the eggs during the day but went up on the roost at night with the other hens. Day 3 she stayed down and stayed on the eggs. We had one black langshan that kept laying her eggs in the broody nest she at one time I counted 25 eggs in the nest. The broody hen is a cuckoo marans but I have been wanting more blue egg layers and dark brown eggs. So I started with blue eggs and the eggs from her sister which were darker than hers. She accepted all the eggs. I had to keep taking the langshan eggs out. Friday 3 marans eggs hatched. Saturday night the first blue one hatched and you can see signs of more coming. This is Sunday. The broody is really good about letting me look under her and picking up the chicks. This has been fun.

 

[TamsSharp]

It was a rough start because she sat on the eggs during the day but went up on the roost at night with the other hens. Day 3 she stayed down and stayed on the eggs.

My hens did this as well. Each night that I closed up the coop I would check to see if they were on their nests. First night that I noticed a hen on the nest I started counting out the 21 days and the hatch date was right on.