Fertile Eggs

[AmberNiColeman]

I am new to incubating eggs and have looked online for some information, but it seems to be mixed, so I'm just going to ask at the risk of sounding ignorant Can you candle an egg before putting in the incubator to know if it is fertilized or not? I put 22 eggs in the incubator and candled at 7 days, only 10 have chicks. The 12 I took out, I cracked open just see if I candled correctly and I did. Only yokes no chicks. Not going to lie, I was pretty sad that those 12 eggs were wasted, so if there is something I could do to prevent that, I'd love to know.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

I am new to incubating eggs and have looked online for some information, but it seems to be mixed, so I'm just going to ask at the risk of sounding ignorant Can you candle an egg before putting in the incubator to know if it is fertilized or not? I put 22 eggs in the incubator and candled at 7 days, only 10 have chicks. The 12 I took out, I cracked open just see if I candled correctly and I did. Only yokes no chicks. Not going to lie, I was pretty sad that those 12 eggs were wasted, so if there is something I could do to prevent that, I'd love to know.

I don’t think you can tell by candling before they’ve incubated at least a couple days. You can check cracked eggs though to see if they have the “bullseye” spot on the yolk showing they were fertilized. So you can either do that with the “duds” to see if they fertilization rate was the issue OR some people crack a few before they start collecting them to incubate to see if most/all are fertilized. If you do method #2 you can just eat those yourself, but it kind of requires you having your own rooster. If you do method #1, some people feed those to their pets or chickens as long as they look and smell ok.

 

[gimmie birdies]

People can actually eat an unfertilized egg that was under a hen or in an incubator for up to 3 days, so I have read.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

People can actually eat an unfertilized egg that was under a hen or in an incubator for up to 3 days, so I have read.

I mean, people eat balut I think it’s called - basically a 2/3 developed chick embryo. It’s a delicacy in large sections of Asia. But once it stops developing (or fails to start), it could start to go bad. So definitely use your judgment. I am on the cautious side, so I would make any reject eggs that still smell ok into pet food personally.

 

[AmberNiColeman]

People can actually eat an unfertilized egg that was under a hen or in an incubator for up to 3 days, so I have read.

Interesting. I candled these after 7 days, so I wasn't taking any chances. They didn't smell though. I wish I would have thought to scramble them up for the chickens though

 

[AmberNiColeman]

I mean, people eat balut I think it’s called - basically a 2/3 developed chick embryo. It’s a delicacy in large sections of Asia. But once it stops developing (or fails to start), it could start to go bad. So definitely use your judgment. I am on the cautious side, so I would make any reject eggs that still smell ok into pet food personally.

Oh, I'm not sure I would consider that a delicacy for myself

 

[AmberNiColeman]

I don’t think you can tell by candling before they’ve incubated at least a couple days. You can check cracked eggs though to see if they have the “bullseye” spot on the yolk showing they were fertilized. So you can either do that with the “duds” to see if they fertilization rate was the issue OR some people crack a few before they start collecting them to incubate to see if most/all are fertilized. If you do method #2 you can just eat those yourself, but it kind of requires you having your own rooster. If you do method #1, some people feed those to their pets or chickens as long as they look and smell ok.

We do have a rooster, we may just have to start paying attention when we eat eggs to see what are fertilized to not fertilized ratio is. I've read that sometimes winter slows down fertilization as well, so maybe I need to add that in to the figuring.