To candle...or not to candle.

[marcuscarr]

I am at day 7 and am wondering if I should candle now, or wait till Saturday (day 10). I have 29 eggs in there and it would probably take 15 to 20 minutes with the bator open.

If I have clears at this point, do I cull them? Would I be waiting until day 10 to cull anyway?

Excited, confused, nervous...all the typical stuff =]

Thanks,
Marcus

 

[jeaucamom]

We candled the welsummers at day 7 and they were VERY apparent which were clear and which were developing. We had 13 out of 16 developing. We left the 3 clear in but we are going to candle the australorps today (day 7) and the welsummers (day 13) If there is no development in the 3 that were clear, we are going to pitch them today. And if any are clear in the australorps, we will leave them in for another week and check again.

Bottom line: It's really easy to candle at day 7, but if they are clear, don't pitch till day 14. That is the rule that we are going to do the candling by, but I'm quite sure others do it differently.

Good luck, and keep us posted!! Suz

 

[skeeter9]

Well, it's personal preference, really. I like to candle on day 10 because by then I can tell for sure on most eggs if they are developing properly or not and cull any that are obviously not right (clears, bloodrings, etc). Then I candle again on day 18 and cull again if I need to. If I'm really bad sometimes I sneak in and candle at other times just to see the development/movement, etc!!! If you want to really see how they develop you should candle more often - that's how most of us learned to identify the different stages and what they looked like.

Good Luck to you!!! I'm sure you'll have a great hatch!!!

Lori