Candling

[Keisha]

Sounds like a promising start! Good luck !

Thankyou.

The ag class t hat has my other eggs are candling them today, so ill be curious to see how well those ones are doing.​

 

[Jayers]

Holy Crow!

Great thread, Keisha, and thanks to OOTB for the link to the candling pictures, however I will say that for the most part I still can't tell the difference between bad/good eggs in those pictures!

Come next Thursday, look for pictures posted by me so you all can tell me the bad or good eggs (hopefully all good).

 

[Mrs MIA]

In my experience (limited as it is) if you don't see a substantial dark mass in the egg by day 12-14, your egg isn't going to hatch.

This is an egg at 10 days from our hatch in November...

You can clearly see the dark mass, and if you stare at it long enough you should see movement (well, not here... this is a photo, it won't move unless your eyes start messing with you!) Even if you don't see movement, leave it in the 'bator.

Unincubated/infertile egg.

14 day egg...

I'm slowly working on getting photos of the different phases.
Now, if I could only see into my quail eggs! The suspense is killing me!

 

[wegotchickens]

Good pics AK-Bird-Brain!!

 

[Mrs MIA]

Thanks! I have a few "duds" in the 'bator now... maybe I should take some more photos...

 

[wegotchickens]

Dud pics would be informative, too.

I never see as much movement as everyone else does. I think I'll try for a higher lumens flashlight...

 

[Mrs MIA]

Try one of the LED flashlights. They're a little stronger, but not as hot. Those "curly-Q" lights work really well, too... not as hot, so you can stare at your babies longer.

We took a ceramic light base and attached it to a piece of wood. Then cut a hole about the size of a silver half-dollar in the bottom middle of a large metal coffee can. We screwed the wood into the rim of the coffee can, and put black felt on the bottom of the can to protect the egg, glueing it down and slightly inside the hole, and viola'! It's bright, not too hot, and can be hung on the wall in the coop by the wood if you have broodies.

Works really well.
Then you have to borrow "little hands" (kidlets) to hold the egg while you take the photo.

I'll try to take some "dud" shots tonight.

 

[ozark hen]

AK I just sent you a pm asking you to do a separate post on just the photos with explanations. it would help so much, yes, even the duds.

 

[Keisha]

Holy Crow!

Great thread, Keisha, and thanks to OOTB for the link to the candling pictures, however I will say that for the most part I still can't tell the difference between bad/good eggs in those pictures!

Come next Thursday, look for pictures posted by me so you all can tell me the bad or good eggs (hopefully all good).

I acutally thought Id never beable to tell the difference either, but when you see a really good one with veins and like compare it to another egg, you can usually tell. Or atleast thats what really helped me.

Mrs Ak Bird brain those are some really good pictures!

The ag teacher told me that they had put the 42 eggs in the bator. Two had cracks in them , so he decided to put them in anyway and break them open for scientific purposes , becasue they wouldnt have enought moisture to hatch anyway, and the air cells are really large. So only 40 were good, then a kid shook another one so 39 I gues they said the airsac was not looking good after they candled it on the first day, but then they candled it today (day 10) and it was ok and growign good. But they said 6 of them looked questionable. so 32 outa 40 is pretty good considering the fact that the kids probably are gonna end up shaking the eggs some what. THey are pretty routy. But are all very excited about the chicks coming in less than 2 weeks. (they eeach named their eggs already , and theyhave some pretty wild names for them

) They are going to try to sex the chicks and do some other things with them after they hatch. They each got 2 eggs, so if their egg(s) hatch they get extra credit. So that kinda motivates everyone to not shake the eggs. But I guess the one kid didnt get the mesage through...
Also, the teacher was tellign me that say when eggs havnet hatched by day 23 they put it in a bucket of water, and like it jolts the chick if its alive, so if the egg moves, they put it back in thebator and let it hatch if it doesnt they crack it open to try and see why it died. Has anyone ever heard of doing that, I hadnt before this...​

 

[Mrs MIA]

I've never heard of that either... I would think it would stress the chick WAYYYYY too much.

I will try to take some more photos throughout the process. I'll have to get DH to help me.

Oh honey!!!

I have eggs that I just set yesterday, week old eggs in the other bator... I have "V"s marked on the ones that had veins, a "?" on the ones that I just can't really tell, and "NG" on the ones that I'm sure are no good, but I'm leaving them in until day 14 just in case.

I also have a BobWhite quail egg that I think I killed... we had an "oopsie" with the not-so-automatic turner, and a dozen eggs got launched into the bottom of the incubator. 4 were cracked (one had a quail chick in it!) and the other three were not growing. There's a blood-ring, or so I think, in the egg now, so I'll try to get a photo of that, too. I think there's a blood-ring in one of my Red Dorking eggs, too.
More tomorrow...but check out this site...
http://lancaster.unl.edu/4h/Embryology/embryophotos.shtml