Filling the incubator 6-3-2011 Join me for my 1st attempt?

[stitch81]

We've got rainstorms rolling through here right now as well. I'm hoping mother nature will be nice and save the power outages until after the eggs have hatched.

 

[m.kitchengirl]

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i know. i am too. 28 days... fingers crossed. its awful, because my garden needs the rain, desperately. best of luck!

 

[stitch81]

Okay guys, here is a picture of one of my eggs that I am unsure of. The shell is pourous looking, so that isn't helping any. The upper portion of the egg is "shadowy" or darker than the lower portion of the egg (the camera made the shadowy part look lighter). What do you think... developing ? I have 5 more that look similar to this, and I moved over 2 more eggs that I had previously marked as developing, but have now put ? marks on. (My questionable eggs are in one carton in the bator.) I know they say that the further on in development, you can't see the veining as well, which may account for the 2 that are now questionable, or they may be quitters... the shells are just so darn hard to see into.

 

[jeanniejayne]

I thought if air pockets were too small you would reduce humidity to encourge depletion of water from the eggs?

 

[wowmanacat]

I just candled my eggs and it look as all my EE's are not fertile and that is not good. My friend payed for them but only around $1.20 so we will not be out to much. We buy all our eggs up at a local auction so there really is not much we can do. All my WLRC are good and so are all of the ones that are from my neighbor. Most of the my mixed eggs are to dark to really see anything at this time. Being that this is my last hatch of the year I will still have around 4 to 6 EE's form this and my last hatch for I do have two form my mixed batch that were EE's.

 

[Taylorhens]

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Sorry about your EE eggs, wowmanacat.

 

[Taylorhens]

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Sorry stitch, I just don't know. No matter how many times I look at the BYC threads that show examples of what different stages of eggs should look like when candling, I never know what I'm seeing. I guess I just stink at candling.

 

[stitch81]

Most of the eggs have movement inside, so those are easy. But these others, I just don't know either. I was able to move one of the questionables to the definately developing side tonight. I saw a little chicky swimming in there! My RIR eggs are the easiest to see into by far, and they seem to be developing more quickly than some of my others. I'm turning into a candling junky, and unfortunately, there just aren't that many pictures out there, especially of eggs that are more pourous, or splotchy looking. I've seen the candling progression pics here on BYC, but haven't really come across anything else.

Edit: Okay, I feel like someone should put a little hat on my head that says "duh!" I was reading around here and came across someone who said they candle from the top... I've been holding the eggs upright and sort of candling from the side or bottom. Well, after reading that, I went back and candled the 8 that were questionable. 4 have swimmers in there. The others are still questionable. I can see veining, which leads me to believe there is a swimmer in there, just hiding under the air cell. Definately encouraging. And, I was able to clearly see the air cells, and they all look really good. Some are bigger than others, but are intact.

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

I just candled tonight. I have several eggs with obvious veining. I could even see little eyes! But I have 2 questions:

1. I have a Golden Polish egg that has clear veining, but another GP egg with a detached air cell and no veining. Should I go ahead and remove it? It's only day 5, but comparitively, I really don't think it's developing.

2. I have a few Maran eggs that are very dark brown with speckles...pretty eggs! Under the light though, the speckles look like pores? I can't tell at all if they're developing. There is a dark mass near the top of some of them.

 

[wowmanacat]

I never throw out eggs till at least day 10 or 14 that way I am very sure of what is going on. Last night all I could see was veins in most all the eggs. I could be wrong about the EE's but the "yolk" was moving from end to end so I would say they are no good.