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I would love to hear how everyone candles, or if they candle. My friend's sis that sent half of my eggs admonished me not to candle because she thinks it decreases hatch rate. My last hatch was a failure and I think there were multiple problems culminating in total failure so now I am paranoid about any factor that could stress the developing chicks.
I read one thread where the gal shines a flashlight down on the egg as it sits in the turner. That way there's no risk in jostling or dropping the egg. Has anyone tried that before?
Its so hard not to peek inside! I was thinking at the very least I should candle before lock down to take out the clears and early quitters any way.
Again, I am going on what I have read and my limited experience...so please don't consider me an expert! I bought a flashlight at
walmart - coleman brand with about 125 lumens. I hold the flashlight in my right hand with my hand surrounding the end of the light so that when i put the egg against with my left hand there will be no light escape between my hand and the egg. I am careful to make sure that the big end stay up, and I spin the egg to get a view from all sides (can an egg have sides?
)
My personal opinion (again, based on very limited knowledge) is that it won't hurt to candle. Mama hen will roll the eggs around and get up to eat and go to the bathroom on occassion, so it shouldn't hurt to move it around and be out of the incubator. I would just recommend that you try to limit the length of time that the eggs are out of the incubator (and the time that the incubator is open). I think that the overwhelming majority say that you should candle so that you can remove potential problems. I was told to smell the egg as well as candle it. Apparently if a bad egg isn't removed, they can explode and ruin your entire hatch.
There are a lot of candling threads here. I did a search for candling in the Incubating & Hatching Eggs section under topics and found quite a few.
