How do you control the urge to candle?

[Biloxi1955]

I confess that the whole family has the potential to be hatchaholics. We set our first 12 in the new incubator a week ago. The temperature and humidity are right on the mark. I checked a couple after Day 4 (couldn't really tell a lot), and then again today. Definitely something good going on there! I read here on BYC to give a look after about 10 days. What kind of schedule do you experienced hatchers put yourself on? We'd be checking them every 5 hours if we could (we won't). Our question is- What do you do to control the urge to candle? I've got a feeling this is going to be the longest 21 days of our life. That, plus the fact that two 3-year old children of my daughter's friends can't wait to see 'their" little chicks hatch. They're about as excited as we are, and are asking for updates. How often should we check the progress?

 

[gryeyes]

Goodness. I may be very unusual, but I don't seem to want to candle 'em until 10 days ('cause I am not sure I can really tell what is a good, developing egg or not) and then I don't do it again until lock-down. And I still don't cull out eggs that look clear or have blood rings. I am afraid I might have missed something and would discard a good egg!

In an incubator of 7 eggs, I will probably candle 4 or 5 of 'em. Either I see something tremendously exciting - a moving chick developing! - and can only take so much excitement, or I don't, and I get really disappointed. In my larger incubators, with 18 to 20 eggs, I will candle about the same number of 'em, for the exact same reason.

If some look good, then I'm happy. If I have candled 5 and can't tell anything, I don't want to candle any more.

But that's just me..... a wussy older lady who doesn't deal with disappointment as well as she should.

 

[duckyfromoz]

After setting eggs most weekends for the last 6 months- I mostly just candle for a quick check to see if they are still alive and to check the size of the air cells. I still love seeing them inside the egg- but the novelty has worn off a little. I will sometimes look at an egg a little longer if there is lots of movement or i can make out a specific body part like the beak or foot. But I have one special egg that gets attention at the moment. I have a double yolker in the last week of incubation ( duck egg ) Its so hard not to candle morning and night..and when I get home from work.

 

[sunflowerenvy]

hide the candles lol

 

[Biloxi1955]

Thanks, gryeyes. I'm with you on not wanting to cull any eggs. We looked at only 4 of them today, and everything looked good. I'm probably going to wait until about Day 12 or so to take another quick peek. Just out of curiosity. (HA!) My 65 year old brother reminded me that he had a good hatch out of a homemade incubator back when we were kids in the early 60's. Heavy cardboard box with light bulbs for heat. It's been many a year since I tried this. We have 25 eight month old hens and roosters now, and just wanted to take the next step of hatching our own. This retirement has been good!