Day 6 candling questions

[Jacob Duckman]

My mailed cortunix quail eggs (first time incubating cortunix eggs) are now on day 6 of incubation. I spent about a half hour candling them with a very bright light and this is what I saw so far:

The patterns on the shells make it very hard to see details inside, but from what I can tell, about half of the eggs look completely undeveloped, with the small yolk floating around freely.

In the other eggs, I can see the yolk part is increasing in size and no longer floats around freely. I cannot see any veins or any other details. No detectable smell on any of them.

A couple of eggs give off a weird light blue-ish color when I put the light on them. I never saw this before on duck or chicken eggs. Maybe it's the egg shell doing that?

Is this good news or bad news? Are the eggs starting to develop or are they starting to rot?

 

[Welshies]

I would leave them until 12 days.

 

[007Sean]

My mailed cortunix quail eggs (first time incubating cortunix eggs) are now on day 6 of incubation. I spent about a half hour candling them with a very bright light and this is what I saw so far:

The patterns on the shells make it very hard to see details inside, but from what I can tell, about half of the eggs look completely undeveloped, with the small yolk floating around freely.

In the other eggs, I can see the yolk part is increasing in size and no longer floats around freely. I cannot see any veins or any other details. No detectable smell on any of them.

A couple of eggs give off a weird light blue-ish color when I put the light on them. I never saw this before on duck or chicken eggs. Maybe it's the egg shell doing that?

Is this good news or bad news? Are the eggs starting to develop or are they starting to rot?

The ones you say have the yolks floating around, have detached air cells. The ones giving off the blue light...what kind of light are you using? Some very bright LEDs give a blueish appearance.
Candle them again at Day 8, should be able to tell by then and have a better idea as to the viability.

 

[JaeG]

This is a really good guide. Has great candling photos to compare to.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/coturnix-quail-egg-candling-guide.71783/

 

[BYC910]

@WVduckchick This is right up her alley

 

[WVduckchick]

Quail can be difficult to candle. I also have seen the different hues from the eggs, from blue to green to orange to yellow. I assume it depended on the variety because i hatched several varieties together. But i didn't make notes of which ones turned out to be what. But it's fine.

Unless they smell, I'd leave them all till day 14 at least. I had several that I never could see veins, marked them with question marks, and several of them hatched!

Hang in there!

 

[Jacob Duckman]

This is a really good guide. Has great candling photos to compare to.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/coturnix-quail-egg-candling-guide.71783/

Thanks! That was very useful. Oddly enough I see no veins anywhere, even with a bright light. I will check again in a couple days.

 

[Jacob Duckman]

Quail can be difficult to candle. I also have seen the different hues from the eggs, from blue to green to orange to yellow. I assume it depended on the variety because i hatched several varieties together. But i didn't make notes of which ones turned out to be what. But it's fine.

Unless they smell, I'd leave them all till day 14 at least. I had several that I never could see veins, marked them with question marks, and several of them hatched!

Hang in there!

I am using a bright LED light for candling. I figured the weird color must've been a reflection from the shell. Glad I'm not seeing things here.

Thanks for the reassuring reply. I'll keep going one day at a time and see what happens. They were shipped in pretty cold weather, so I'm not expecting too much success. What is the coldest you've had a egg stored at before it successfully hatched?