When should I candle the egg? (Day 22)

[LittleMaiden]

Me again. I have one egg under a broody that's on day 22 and there haven't been any pips or anything. Should I candle it now to check if its alive or just continue to wait a bit more?

 

[PirateGirl]

Me again. I have one egg under a broody that's on day 22 and there haven't been any pips or anything. Should I candle it now to check if its alive or just continue to wait a bit more?

If your chick is overdue I’d candle it. If it’s alive you should see movement. Give the shell a little tapping with a fingernail while you candle and usually they jump around in there!

 

[LittleMaiden]

If your chick is overdue I’d candle it. If it’s alive you should see movement. Give the shell a little tapping with a fingernail while you candle and usually they jump around in there!

Candled and saw no movement. Not even sure what kind of movement I was supposed to see but literally nothing. Air cell looks good but I read someone else had this but it was just a detached cell We've never done this before. We'll just wait until day 25 before removing it and giving up

 

[PirateGirl]

You will know when you see movement, it is very obvious. If you google egg candling videos and select one that is more than halfway through development you can see some good examples. I would say that the exception is if you have an egg with a very dark shell because then it can be hard to see anything inside.

 

[PirateGirl]

Share a photo of your egg while candling if you take another look.

 

[LittleMaiden]

Sorry it took a while. Didn't want to disturb it again yesterday. Just checked again, nothing. Hope you can see the pics. On mobile and never done this before

 

[LittleMaiden]

Egg never hatched in case anyone from the future visits this thread. Not sure what happened as we didn't want to open up the egg.

 

[cmfarm]

It looks to me that the air cell didn't shrink down enough.