First time candling eggs

[crj]

Last night I found a way to candle my duck eggs. How totally cool that is....... LOL!

I have never checked my chicken eggs because they are all brown and figured I would never be able to see anything. Since my duck eggs are in the incubator I decided I wanted to see how they were doing. I have 12 duck eggs and 2 looked to be lifeless.

Definitely got rid of one but wasn't sure of the other so I'll wait on that a bit. I have 18 days to go.

This is my first time incubating duck eggs.

 

[pride&joy]

I also need to learn about this subject bump

 

[Petej]

For more info on candling: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261876

It's helped me ALOT!!!

Good luck!

 

[crj]

These are two sites I looked at last night. They helped quite a bit.

http://www.poultryconnection.com/quackers/mycandlepix/candle.html

http://www.metzerfarms.com/Candling.cfm

I took a plastic cup and cut a hole in the bottom for an egg to sit over. Large enough for the egg to be on it's side. I took an LED flashlight and stuck it up through the bottom and I could see what was happening in the egg. You have to be in a dark room in order to see anything. Next time I will use the toilet paper tube. It might be easier even if there is tp on it........ lol. I didn't think of that. Anyway, the plastic cup worked fine. Talk about low tech. You gotta love it!!!!

 

[crj]

Yesterday I candled the egg I wasn't sure about. Sure enough the egg was no good so I tossed it. I figure 2 out of 12 isn't too bad. I'm hoping all 10 duck eggs will hatch. It's a wait and see for now.

 

[al6517]

I built this candler into my Homemade incubator, it works great because I can just pull the egg out candle it real quick and put it right back in.
AL

 

[enggass]

What day would you say that it is visually the clearest whether or not you have a viable egg or not? From all of the pictures I've looked at, it seems as though day 7 it is most obvious. I will be hatching my first eggs this spring, and want to know what day would be a first good day to candle and begin weeding out the baddies...?

 

[al6517]

I find day 10 works for me, there is realy no questions about viability at that 10 day stage.

AL