candling question

[688peterl]

Im now on day 11 of incubation, on day 7, five of the eggs were fertile (indian runner eggs), then a few days later one of them died which leaves me with 4 (i started with 6) i candled them this morning and two of them look a lot dofferent to the other two, one pair has blood vessels which i can see clearly, the other eggs look sort of like shadows inside? the eggs with the blood vessels dont move (i mean the embyro doesnt move) when i pick the egg up, but the other two eggs wobble all over the place, i should mention that the eggs with the "shadows" have been giving me problems, one of them wont sit right in the incubator, it keeps changing posistion when the eggs are turned (the air cell end keeps going lower every time its turned) and the other "shadow" egg has a tiny little crack in it which i have known about since i got the eggs but i was told to incubate it anyway, so if the "shadow" eggs are dead/infertile that leaves me with just 2 fertile healthy eggs!

 

[classroomducks]

So far Im pretty sure I've lost 8 eggs out of my orig 24. From what I can tell. If you can see the veins they are still alive. If you cant see the veins and there is a dark shawdow, look for a ring like reddish color on the egg. That means that there was an embryo but for whatever reason it stopped developing. The movement is good i think but it is not mandatory. The moving in the shadowed eggs could just be the remians floating around...the movement in my eggs at least is very jerky and sporadic (like a baby kicking) As long as there are veins i think you are ok. From my eggs, the ones that are gone are dark shadowed on one side and almost completely clear on the other. Give them a few more days...Im starting to have trouble seeing the veins because my babies are getting big...day 17. If you dont see veins though I dont think it is good.

http://www.poultryconnection.com/quackers/links.html has some good pictures of bad eggs under the candling section. See if that helps.