Need a little help

[bigred7469]

I built a candler today and tried it out on a few of my eggs. They are just alittle bit over 48 hours sitting in the incubator and we are hand turning them every 8 hours. What am I looking at? or is it to early to tell. Thanks for the inputs. These are two different eggs and breeds.

 

[JDchicks]

I use this site to compare the stages of candling.


http://chat.allotment.org.uk/index.php?topic=73884.0

Good Luck!

 

[cochins1088]

It's too early to tell, you should see something by day 7, and it gets really neat in my opinion at day 10. They look fine for being only 48 hours old, but you can't really tell at this point.

 

[cluck-cluck]

So far I can see in your pictures a small air sack, which looks correct, and the yolk is starting to darken. If you had candled before setting them, they would have looked almost clear, and though the air sack would have been about the same size, it would have been a lot harder to see. In two more days, you will be able to see some veins forming where the "whites" would be. They bring fresh oxygen to the embryo and take carbon dioxide out through the egg shell.. Later, just before the chick hatches, it sucks up all that blood into itself along with the last of the yolk, which it lives off of for a couple of days after hatching.

By day 7, you can see a dark blob moving around. Sometimes you have to slowly turn the egg to get the embryo close to the shell so you can see it. This is it's huge eye! Also, it sometimes takes a minute for them to move for you, sometimes they're wiggle worms! If you see a clear ring of blood, the embryo died, but be careful if you are not sure, give them more time! I saw an odd dark blob, I was sure it was bacteria, it didn't move, and I even removed it from the incubator for a few minutes until my hubby convinced me to give it a chance. So I put it back in and a couple of days later, it looked just like the other eggs, with a wiggly lil bugger inside! That taught me not to make such quick judgments!

Day 14, you can still see them wiggling, though they take up more space, and on day 18, I was able to find a small pinpoint of light that came and went with what I presume was chick movement, LOL

Mine are on lockdown, and should have finished day 19, when terrible me pulled one out to candle quickly. Except for the (much larger than 2 days ago) air sack, the egg was black. I saw nothing. I didn't dare turn it, just candled ti the same way I had it laying in lockdown. This has been such a learning experience for me as I never gave that much thought to the development of bird eggs before and didn't realize how much I didn't know about a bird's reproduction system! Or how similar to our own it is! I feel like a little kid!

Hope you all have as much fun as I've had with this! Hope I didn't go on too much either, LOL!

 

[bigred7469]

Thanks so much for everybodies help!!

 

[silkymom1986]

for a good hatch! I'll let ya know how my batch turns out, I set them about a week before you. Looking good so far. Welsummer eggs are harder to candle too because they are so dark, just a fyi.

 

[bigred7469]

Thanks for the heads up. The kids are loving the turning and the hole thing.