candling eggs

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ziggy

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hi all ive never candled eggs before , as my last lot all hatched so i was lucky ,
but this time ive got 12 eggs in from two different sources.they been in 4 days and i looked at 5 and they look a bit like pic one on the candling section on here! is it too early to do this?
regards simon
 
I would say probably not for the experienced Expert, but I leave mine until at least seven days before I candle them, and then test them again at two weeks, so there is less margin for error.
 
Not advisable to open the incubator in the first 7 days as that is the most critical period. I candle at day 7 and again at 10 to confirm the infertiles, which are then removed. All the eggs are individually numbered and what I saw when candled recorded as I go. Can't see much before day 7 anyway.
 
Hens do move them in the early days. If you mark the eggs under a broody X & O on opposite sides, you will see the the eggs are not turned completely over on a regular basis but what she does do is pull the outside ones in and the outside ones out. In doing so, a certain amount of turning goes on.
There is nort a lot of point in candling too early. The developing eggs are very vulnerable in the early days. Some eggs that started to develope in the early days can have stopped growing (died) by day 10.
 
I only have experience with incubating quail, and it's not usual to candle them at all, because the strong patterns on the shells make it practically impossible to see anything. I've just left them without touching the incubator until turning stops 2 days before hatch and the egg turning circle is removed and water added to the pots to assist hatch. I've had good hatches of all the fertile eggs (having examined the unhatched ones later on) and no problems with eggs exploding etc. I can belive this might happen, but is it common? Would it be best to restrain one's curiosity and just not candle the eggs at all, to give all of them the best chance to develop undisturbed? If you are careful about only using clean, intact eggs, maybe there is little to be gained from candling (and certainly nothing in the early stages, because even potentially damaged eggs wouldn't be dangerous at that point.)
 
Eggs weep but I've fortunately never had one explode, because that's the whole batch gone. Even the weeping could contaminate the hatch because it's the rotten gassing egg contents expanding through pores in the shell and forming spots of crusty deposit on the surface. We've had several of those. So I guess that's what you need to look out for. They initially look like a speck of dirt on the egg or even a shell surface defect, almost roughness, and we didn't realise what they were initially, as the book I was following just described 'weeping'. When we cracked the egg open it was full of gas and rot and stank horrible! That was about day 12.
 
Ou may well be right. I havnt candled in the last three batches
The ones that didn't develope never exploded , but my worry is incubating infertile eggs
That will never develope cos of the postal service or others ,
So not wasting time
 
It's unlikely you will experience problems with clear eggs going bad. I feed these to my dogs after seven days of incubation and they appear as fresh as the day they were laid!! The risk increases where Eggs develop and then die, these can addle as chrismahon mentions, and the signs of a 'baddun' have already been described, although it's relatively rare for them to explode in an incubator. With regular checks most addled eggs should be spotted and removed before the explosive stage!!
 
ziggy said:
but my worry is incubating infertile eggs
That will never develope cos of the postal service or others ,
So not wasting time
Click to expand...

I don't think you save any time by removing any eggs you don't think will hatch, as the fertile ones will still have to stay in the incubator until the hatch date arrives. It's not as if you could replace the infertile ones with substitute eggs halfway through a hatch.
If you are worried about e-bay egg quality or the effects of posting, maybe try to find a trustworthy local breeder near enough to collect the eggs? this would have the advantage that you could see if the parent birds were well kept and healthy, which is half the battle in hatching strong chicks.
 
So your saying bad eggs addled , are those that have developed then died ?
Does that mean any supermarket eggs that go bad are fertilised?
I've just candled some not all , and ivedef got veins stretching around the egg now and a little dark spot !!
There's some which are a little darker shell I can't tell what's going on yet
But all good as there the plymouth rock eggs !
 
You may not get a good look through the dark shells in which case, compare the size of the air sacs with the other eggs at around 14 days.

I've always thought of addled as egg contents that changed from the normal yolk/white and gone bad usually because they started to develope then died. It is unusual for an egg to explode spontaneously. Rough handling can make them explode and even then, it's unusual.
 
ziggy said:
So your saying bad eggs addled , are those that have developed then died ?
Does that mean any supermarket eggs that go bad are fertilised?
Click to expand...

Generally speaking in eggs from a small domestic flock yes. You will have removed any clear eggs by seven to ten days of incubation, and by and large, the contents of most of these infertile eggs should have remained virtually unaltered from the point incubation began.Clear Eggs with hair-line cracks or over-porous shells can turn bad, but it's unusual for it to happen to the degree mentioned in the matter of a week or so, it's normally fertilised,embryonic eggs that have died that rot quickly.
Supermarket eggs aren't ordinarily fertile! So Tescos incendiary eggs must have been exposed to some particularly virulent bacteria somewhere along the line to explode in your fridge!
 
Hi I think the air sac is too big , about a third of the egg on day 13 what can I do should I worry , I'm running dry. Relitive humidity is 35/40%
Any ideas ?
Regards simon
 
Guess you are in a modern house with central heating on to lose that much water so early. Not a problem I've had as our place is cold and damp being built in 1830. I would raise the humidity to 60% on the gauge otherwise i think they are going to dry out. But see what others think first. As far as I can make out the humidity gauges people use are purely decorative, as everyone seems to get different results with the same readings and it seems to depend more on the house they are being incubated in. So OK to run dry in an old damp house, but not in a modern one perhaps.
 
Ah fine thank you , my house is a 50s semi , but the incy is on the garage. So always steady at cool and dark but I guess stable
I don't see so many veins this last time but I'm hoping that's because there filling our nicely ? If my humidity is out , I'm trusting that the relieve circumstances are the same as last time which hatched 6/8 dojng the same thing?
Regards Simon
 
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