I need help! I tried to candle my eggs today. It was awful. I have to admit that I've never candled before. I guess I've been lucky in the past that bad eggs did not explode inside my incubator. My hatches weren't 100%, but they were over 90. Today before I started candling, I went back and read every post, every book, every Youtube video and every article from searches on the world wide web about how to see and what I would see on day 8! I started with 1 dozen eggs out of the 39. 2 had moving chicks. O yeah! 5 were void. I opened them up and the yolk was still quite yellow with no blood, no smell, no embryo. I'm guessing they were either shaken and treated rough during the journey by mail, were too hot/cold or infertile. The remaining 5 eggs had a dark middle and I could see a vague shape but it was very cloudy. There was no blood ring. I made 2 different candlers from pics and descriptions on this site. I used flashlights as recommended, then tried light bulbs, wrapping my fingers around the egg and even had a professional egg candler that was useless. This dozen eggs traveled the farthest to get to me, had no extras, cost the most and of course, are my favorite breed. One egg was cracked on arrival but wasn't leaking nor has an odor. I now live in fear of contaminating my hatch! I've pasted the link to egg development/candling below. My eggs look somewhat like the 2nd (middle) picture of Day 10. How can that be?
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...g-candling-pics-progression-though-incubation
I don't want to do anymore candling until I'm sure of what I'm looking at. It would be terrible for me if I removed what I thought was a dead egg only to open it up and find a partial embryo. Also, I wonder if the drop in temps while I candle is safe. I watched a video of a woman candling her eggs and she didn't seem to give a thought to the eggs sitting in the opened incubator! When I lifted my top off of my 'bator, the temp went down to 87 in just a few seconds. I'm extremely slow while candling and that is aggravating. Am I suppose to do it real quick? Is that something to worry about? How do I learn quick hands??!!
I read that a hen turns her eggs about 95 times a day. An 89% hatch rate is common for a seasoned hen. My numbers are so bad right now, I've lost my confidence! Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated. I did think of taking a picture of the eggs to show you how they look but couldn't manage holding egg, light and camera as well as figuring how to keep the camera from over-exposing the picture. This candling thing seems rather perplexing!