Timeline for candling eggs

[okiedrifter]

I dont candle to often because I just dont know if that light scares them or hurts them or doesnt bother them at all...everyone has a opinion but no one knows...I am also afraid I will drop it so when I do candle it I candle in its carton in the incubator I am looking for veins not to watch it dance or anything else...I stay on the egg maybe 3 seconds and go on..does this keep sone eggs in the incubator when they should have been tossed? you betcha it does but its the way I do it....2nd time I am looking for growth I know how big it shoud be and again stay only a second or two and go on....

 

[Arielle]

Jack--it's ok to candle, you don't need to candle all of them to fulfill the need to look at the eggs. You will see the veining--very cool. My 7 and 9 yr olds stayed up late one night to see just 4 eggs. My point is, just check a few of them. Every time you pick up an egg you risk dropping it. I've done it. Last week someone posted that he dropped a try of 72 eggs. It happens. Just reduce the chances of it happening. You will see day 4 is very different than day 7. It grows FAST! Have fun.

 

[HeadlessChicken]

Quote:
Hi Arielle, thanks for your message. Some good points made - i'll get a couple of them out later and have a look as we're on day 4 now. So excited!

Jack

 

[Gypsy07]

I weigh my eggs to gauge moisture loss, so I split the 18 day incubation period into three parts, and candle on days 6 and 12, and then again on day 18 right before I lock them down. The idea behind dividing it into three equal parts is so I can divide the amount of weight I want each egg to lose into three parts as well, which makes it easy to gauge whether I need to adjust my humidity up or down each time I candle.

Like: If I have a 69g egg, I want it to lose 13% of its weight by lockdown. 13% of 69g is 9g, so I divide that by 3, to get 3g. So when I weigh the egg on day 6, a third of the way throught the 18 day incubation period, if it is fertile and developing normally, it should have lost 3g. By day 12, it should have lost 6g. If it has lost significantly more or less, I know to adjust my humidity up or down as required.

And for me, day 6 is about the earliest I can candle and be sure if I'm seeing development and veins in an egg as well...