Need advice about incubating and candling

[chalis]

Hello everyone, i hope this posts in the right place. If not please forgive me. We are having some issues with candling our mallard eggs. We have had our eggs in a home made incubater for eight days now and can not see anything when candling. The only change I have noticed is the yokes have gotten darker. We decided to incubate becouse the outside temp started to drop below freezing and she still wasn't siting on the nest. She just kept laying more. She got up to 18 and quit. Then two days latter she started laying more and now has 3 in the nest. She kept kicking one out so we brought it in and candled it and didnt see anything. It was even hard to see the yoke. So we cracked it open to see if it was fertil. It had blood veins! As well as two blood spots, one on each side of the yoke. My question is why are we not seeing the veins when we candle. I feel horrible that we cracked open a good egg. Please help!

 

[lazy gardener]

Generally, a bird will lay a full clutch of eggs, then stop laying, and she will start brooding them. Is she broody? Sitting on the nest day and night and only getting off for a few minutes to eat and defecate? IMO, you shouldn't let her brood more than 12 eggs, even if she is broody. You might want to take the ? about how many eggs to let her brood over to the duck thread. Please read: Hatching Eggs 101 in the learning center. It will help you a lot.

 

[DRaeMc]

They are white eggs correct? I don't have mallard eggs, but do have Khaki's and every egg that I have candled from my khakis I can see veins starting day 3. By day 8 you should see a little duckling floating around in there.

 

[chalis]

Yes, they are white. But when you candle them there is what looks to my like a film on the outside of the egg. It almost like feathery clouds.I am guessing its supposed to be there but it makes it really hard to see clearly.

 

[chalis]

[/IMG]

This is what i see when candling. From what I have read the are not showing anything they are supposed to. I am new to incubating and am not sure if I have a load of bad eggs or am just going blind.

 

[DRaeMc]

You should candle up where the air cell is. That's where the veins start.