Marking Eggs

[mopargal1972]

I use a dark colored pencil, usually dark blue or green. It seems to stay better than regular pencil, but it could just be my imagination.

 

[Brickman House]

I've used either a pencil or a Sharpie. Neither hold up spectacularly well to handling for candling or turning, but definitely better than any of the non-permanent markers.

I remember a while back someone posted a question about whether the Sharpie would leach through the egg and harm the developing chick. In response, someone else posted a photo of a just hatched egg shell that had been marked with a Sharpie, and you could clearly see that none of the ink had even remotely reached the inside of the shell.

 

[OutInTheStiks]

We use a sharpie. Our first hatch was 36 out of 38 fertile eggs hatched. All were marked with a sharpie. No chicks were hatched tattooed.

 

[key west chick]

I used a purple crayon on light colored eggs.

 

[jbear]

Quote:
lol~Darn, I was so hoping the peeps were going to come out with smiley faces on them too!

for me--smiley face on egg equals--fertile and movin around in there!
I use a sharpie....

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

I use pencil for eggs that I am selling. Eggs I incubate myself get the date on them, and which hen or pen they are from writtein in fine point sharpie.

 

[chickenlady08]

Quote:
Can i ask what a bloodring is? I have a broody hen and if my guess is accurate it shows like a ring of red around the embryo? Am I right or am I way off base here? my girl has 8 eggs under her. 5 show the veining and 2 are supposed to hatch next thursday. The remaining are supposed to hatch the 16th. The reason I am so far apart, the other girls got into the nest and I thought destroyed all of the original eggs. I was wrong and I added a few more thinking she would have 6 under her. Then these appear and show definite signs of life.

Oh I use a Sharpie also. Never thought that it would be toxic to babies. I feel like a terrible chicken mommy:-((

 

[Ridgerunner]

This site should help on showing blood rings.

Candling Analysis – Cal Davis
http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/Avian/pfs32.htm

Next time you are going to use an egg, take a sharpie and mark all over the shell. Let it dry, which only takes a few seconds. When you break the egg open, look for the markings on the inside of the shell. This might help you decide if a sharpie is dangerous to an embryo.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

The issue with the Sharpies would not be the pigments used but the solvents that carry them. The pigments don't seem to penetrate the shell/membrane. The solvents on the other hand very well might and they are not something you can see.

Now, whether they would present a hazard to the embryo within I cannot say. The available evidence seen thus far would seem to indicate that they do not.

.....Alan.