First Time Broody - Candling Help Needed! Pics!

[AlyssaB87]

We’ve had 4 hens for about a year now. A couple of them had been broody before but none since we got them until a couple weeks ago. Our BCM “Scramble” went broody and I couldn’t break her. It was pretty clear she was committed. SO, I got 8 fertile eggs from a local breeder. 6 of the eggs are on day 7 and 2 on day 6.

Scramble didn’t leave the nest at all today. She has water and food accessible to her. It is 90s and humid here, but she seems fine. I’ve been removing her from the nest and putting her in the run with about 40 mins til dusk so she can poop, drink, and eat. Today we left her. Should we leave her going forward? We were told it was plenty warm and humid enough for her to be off eggs for a little bit but I get nervous that we might break her (though this has been going on for 2+ weeks at this point).

We candled all 8 eggs today. 4 of them appear to have something attached to one side and the other 4 look way different from our non fertile eggs, but we can’t clearly make out veins like some images online show. We are thinking of candling again on Sunday.

Here is what 4 look like:

And the other 4 look like this:

Hard to tell in the above photos as it isn’t easy to get the best pics in the dark, but there’s a darker spot and hat appears to be an air pocket. I didn’t realize I was supposed to be looking for a really dark spot, so I haven’t looked for that. Any insight on these eggs? Leave them?

 

[AlyssaB87]

After reading several forums on here and studying photos, we decided to candle again in a darker space and study the eggs for veins and dark spots. Good news! 4 of the 8 definitely have veins and a dark spot. There are 2 we are uncertain about and 2 we think are duds. We are going to wait on making decisions until closer to 10 days.

What else should we be looking for? Air pocket? Still yolk? If the yolk isn’t floating then bad egg?

One of the ones with veins though a terrible photo!

 

[Livingskies]

Those look like dark or thick shells! If you do it after dark or in the bathroom with the door shut it helps. Try to have little to no ambient light. That makes it easier to see. Make sure the egg is horizontal or the blunt end is up, I found on thicker or darker shells I really and to move the flashlight all around trying to get the best view. The last pic you sent looks good. In around 3 more days you should definitely see some movement or more signs of change. There's something called an egg float test you can use for a last check before you cull an egg before assuming it's infertile. As far as her being off eggs for 40 minutes, studies have shown that 30-40 min daily is ok and even perhaps beneficial. I do know from a Robin hatch in my backyard this spring she was off her eggs for over 3 hours while we did yard work one of the days and she had a 100% hatch rate!