Candling question, again...

[Bettacreek]

Sorry for the billion and one questions, but, when candling coturnix eggs, when should the egg have a nice dark blob in it? So far, I've removed two eggs that I thought were infertile (it's day 6), and cracked them open to see. They were both infertile, and one had a scrambled yolk (not from me opening, so probably in transit or something). But, some eggs looked like they had small blobs in them instead of just veins (one of which was one that I had candled on day 3 or 4 and definately saw veins), while others just had a tiny blur in them. Are some developing slower than others, or are the ones with tiny blurs all infertile? My incubator does have a very distinct smell to it, but I'm assuming that it's the natural smell of eggs, because they smelled like that when they arrived, and the ones that were fertile and had veins smelled this way. It's not a bad odor, just a distinct smell. So, should I toss any eggs that don't have blobs or only have small blurs, or should I wait a little while longer to see?

 

[shelleyd2008]

It's up to you. I have never had a quail egg blow up in the bator, they just dry out if they are no good. I also have never been able to candle quail eggs, so I'm no help there. All I can ever see is if they are clear or not, and very rarely have I been able to see veins.

 

[Bettacreek]

Alright, thank you.

I'll probably candle some later in the game and remove clear ones, just to make room. I'll do a few per day, I can't see myself doing 140 something eggs all in one go, lol.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Yeah, after day 7ish, just candle one row a day till you get them all done, or hatch day gets there, whichever is first

Good luck! I'm gonna be in a similar boat before long!

 

[Bettacreek]

Lol. Keep peeping at the egg train posts and you'll have that problem, lmao. I'd be swapping a storm, but I have nothing to swap yet, and since it looks like I might have only one button hen, I don't think I'm going to be worrying about eggs anytime soon.

 

[shelleyd2008]

WEll, I have eggs coming from 4 or 5 different people, most of them quail, from the swaps, plus I ordered 120 from pop57, so I know I'm gonna be in the same boat! I just hope I have enough bator space for them all! I'll worry about brooders later!

Oh, and that's 4 or 5 that I can think of, I think it's more like 7, plus the eggs from pop!

 

[Bettacreek]

Lol. I just have the one set, but I'm looking forward to getting button eggs soon. I'll have to set up another incubator though, someone is going to have me hatching their chickens for them, so the bator will be in use at the time. I may make a seperate hatcher and incubate a few button eggs at the same time, but that depends on how many he needs for me to incubate and if I have room in the bator after his eggs go in. I'll have to buy button eggs though, since I seem to have mostly a bachelor's pad.

 

[Bettacreek]

Well, I did them all. 36 eggs left out of 150 shipped eggs, and about half of them are questionable.

I think I'm going to go back through the duds and crack them all open to check to make sure I did it right.

 

[Bettacreek]

I put most back in, I found one with a small embryo, so, I'm not going to trust myself on the rest of them. One was a genuine stink bomb, but the others were just infertile and clear.

 

[Bettacreek]

I'm completely confused. My eggs, as of right now, should be 10 days. When I candled before (it was actually day 7 that I candled) I had some with large dark blotches. The one that I had cracked, the embryo was about the size of my pinky finger nail. Was that possibly one that had started and died before I cracked it open? How full are my eggs supposed to be at day 7? How full are they supposed to be at day 10 or 11? The one egg was a definate fertile, I candled it at day 3 or 4, and there were veins in it, and on day 7, it was a full blotch. That is why I had assumed that any that didn't have full blotches were duds, but then I had opened that one and it had an embryo, even though it was nowhere near as full as some of the other eggs (including the one that had definate veins in it). Are there any day to day guides with pictures of candled coturnix eggs?! Help! Lol.