Do you candle before incubation?... please read

[jm93030]

I have a friend who was having very bad hatches , he was so disapointed and was blaming his bator.

I asked him to give me some eggs to hatch at my bator just to compare bator to bator results.

But just to be sure I decided to candle the eggs , no sure what to look for but I did.
Here is when I noticed lots of cracks , but this cracks where hard to see on the shell .
out of 80 eggs he gave me , 32 eggs had cracks from small to big .

I didnt put any of this in the bator and the results where very good we ended with 42 chicks .

Have you had any issues like this?

Do you candle to find for cracks?

Do you think this cracks may be a reason for bad hatches ?

Thank you guys amd so sorry for so many questions , but I have a lot to learn and there is no better place than here.

Thank you thank you all

 

[WallTenters]

Any cracked egg of any species should probably be thrown out. The incubator isn't just a perfect growing environment for your baby chicks, but is also a perfect environment for bacteria. I haven't ever incubated quail eggs, but with our chicken eggs, we use a bit of crayon to cover and fill in a crack if it's small and we notice it right away, and only if it's a really valuable egg to us...

Sounds like his hens are mabe not getting the right nutrition (calcium, magnesium or other) to produce better egg shells, or maybe they're young or old, bad weather, etc.