Pre Incubating Candleing

[RoosterDon]

I candled for the first time before starting this round. All eggs looked clear (with some showing a little grey mass, I assume being the yolk). Should some be SOOOO clear? Would this indicate potential infertile eggs, or does it take a few days to really be able to tell?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

They should all look clear prior to incubation. You don't generally see anything until 3-5 days and then that's iffy. I don't think you can properly judge until at least a week, but that could just be me...lol

 

[aart]

Candling before setting to incubate can be good tho.....
.......to look for any excessive porosity, or cracked shells, or double yolkers, or funky air cells.

 

[HumbleHen207]

I am going to start candling prior to hatch, last time I had an excessively porous egg that exploded on me relatively early in incubation! What a mess... A good egg should look very clear before you set it.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Candling before setting to incubate can be good tho.....
.......to look for any excessive porosity, or cracked shells, or double yolkers, or funky air cells.

The last hatch I did I decided to experiment and put a couple of the fresher eggs that had gone to the fridge in with the others. (I had read someone incubates refridgerated eggs and it was a matter of seeing for myself, as it was my understanding they wouldn't hatch after being refridgerated.) So as an after thought I grabbed the two green ones I had and put them in. Not thinking to check them. Next day I realized I hadn't candled those two so I gave them a look. One of them had the largest wonkiest air cell. I would not have intentionally set that one had I checked it, but I figured since I already had it in there over 24 hours, might as well go with it. It did start developing but quite within the first 5 days. Just a black eye developed.

 

[RoosterDon]

Interesting. Well I thought that you could hatch eggs that had been refrigerated. I put one of my sex links in the incubator and labeled it "fridge" so we will see.

How can you tell if an egg is 'really porous'? Does it look like it has a ton of holes in it with a lot of gray on the shell?

I have yet to have one explode on me, and my first few hatches included some stinkers that I finally threw away. The first time I hatched I cracked one open gently to see what was inside and it literally exploded making a very loud pop sound in the kitchen. It was the most God awful smell ever, worse then sulfer. My wife was not a happy camper. lol.

 

[aart]

Hard to describe what a porous egg looks like and I don't have any pics, I used to have some links but they are gone.
But if you search for candling you'll find some.

Folks have hatched eggs that have been refrigerated, there was even a thread about hatching refrigerated fertile eggs from Trader Joes.....
.....no guarantees tho....
and not sure anyone has looked at the variables closely enough to record any real parameters for success and/or failure.

There's thread or two here somewhere....just search 'refrigerator eggs'.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Interesting. Well I thought that you could hatch eggs that had been refrigerated. I put one of my sex links in the incubator and labeled it "fridge" so we will see.

How can you tell if an egg is 'really porous'? Does it look like it has a ton of holes in it with a lot of gray on the shell?

I have yet to have one explode on me, and my first few hatches included some stinkers that I finally threw away. The first time I hatched I cracked one open gently to see what was inside and it literally exploded making a very loud pop sound in the kitchen. It was the most God awful smell ever, worse then sulfer. My wife was not a happy camper. lol.

That's what I did...lol labled the two fridge. The second one developed great. At day 20 it was moving then nothing. When I eggtopsied I found a perfectly formed little turken chick. It had already absobed the yolk was in a good position, not shrink wrapped just never pipped. No idea what happened.

Yes, that's a pretty description of porous egg. silkiechicken has a good pick of a porous egg on the candling page: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...g-candling-pics-progression-though-incubation

I have not had one explode, (knock on wood) yet. I've come close. This last hatch I was checking my eggs one day and saw this:

I thought for sure it would bust when i went to take it out but it didn't. The membrane was real tough, thank heaven.

The crack went all the way around.


I was lucky!!! lol

 

[aart]

Quote: Yep, that link has good candling pics...BUT....note that they are bantam eggs and they light up better than LF eggs.

Holy CrackedEgg HatcherWoman!! Got lucky there, was it a stinker?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Yep, that link has good candling pics...BUT....note that they are bantam eggs and they light up better than LF eggs.

Holy CrackedEgg HatcherWoman!! Got lucky there, was it a stinker?

It was once I opened it. But it wasn't a normal bad egg smell, it was different. Just as awful, but a different smell. I'm assuming it was a bacterial smell versus a rotten egg smell. lol It did not smell in the bator though, not until the membrane was broke.