How Often do you Candle?

[Just Rosie]

Hello all,
I am happy to say I have begun raising chicks again. My breeder/friend and I were talking about candling.
I personally like to candle 3 times during incubation (and usually once before). Day 7, 12, and 17. I candle all of my eggs, because my batches are never larger than 40.
Breeder friend says he only candles before incubation, and then after day 22 if the chick has not hatched. This is one of the reasons he has a near perfect hatch rate.
I was curious what others opinions were. We all know candling will do more harm than good if done too often, but how often is too often?
Do you have a number of times to candle per hatch, or do you even candle at all?
Do you think candling (if done at all) can hurt your hatch rate?
Would love your thoughts and reasoning.
Thanks!

 

[featheredplanets]

I candle 3 times. Once before incubation, as I’ve never bothered to set eggs with warped air cells or double yolks. Once on day 7 and once on day 17. If I have an egg that hasn’t hatched by day 23 I just go ahead and make a small hole.

It can be important to candle at least once during incubation to check for dead eggs. As they can and do explode, then they cover the good eggs in bacteria so you have to spend 15 minutes cleaning and with the good eggs in the cold.

 

[Mylied]

I candle as much as I feel like. I don't think it affects hatch rate as I've had near perfect hatches and then others were practically nothing hatches. I know I mess up in other ways but don't think it's candling.

 

[Erba]

I probably don't candle enough. I do candle before they go in to check for anomalies, then willy nilly sometime during incubation. This batch I did at four days, because I thought one hen could be a bit young, and the rooster just might have ignored her, but all were at least fertile. I then do it before I put them into lockdown, because they have to come out anyway, so I can remove the turner and put in the hatching mat. I get rather awful hatches percentage wise , keep tweaking my method to see if I can improve. Was blown away with the fertility, but I am now using younger hens...maybe that was the problem with my hatches in the past.

 

[Just Rosie]

Thank you all for the replies! It makes me feel better about candling, because I genuinely enjoy it, and see it as part of the experience of hatching eggs.