i was going realy good with my chick bator on the third day i could not see anything so i thought it was not working because i have a chick bator so i cracked one of the eggs open and it had veins inside i was so sad so i still hav 2 in the incubator i could not see anything in there so i have given up candling if they hatch they hatch if there off there off so that just shows you that the chick bator dose work it has been working brilliant right temp and humid so lets just wait and see
candeling fiasco
Sorry, lucky; what a disappointment, but I'm glad the incubator's indeed working.
on the other eggs on one i can see the veins and there is a tiny little black dot in the middle is the black dot the baby? and on the other egg i can only see the black dot i think i can see veins but im not sure it is a dark coloured egg
lucky - - - if you can see black/dark spider like veins in your eggs, then you are ok. I would leave those two eggs inside the bator and let it do the work for you. How many more days until the hatch? Good luck!
they were duds i hav more eggs in ther i started getting blood rings in there so i got rid of them quick so there are more eggs in there and they hav been in for 2 days
Its safer to wait till 7 to 10 days to candle them
Best to just let the eggs be
i candeled them today and there is a big rey black pactc i think i can see veins so im hoping that it is not a bad egg
I wait til they are 10 days old to candle them.
If you can see veins you have a live one.
Have fun!
Has anyone here had any success with being able to candle the brown eggs ? I've been able to see thru the white shells, but not the brown ones.
I've got a dozen in my incubator right now, but they are mostly brown. Problem is, .......I'm not sure they are all good, and hate to leave any bad ones in there in case they would spoil and make a mess in the incubator.
If you've had any luck candling brown eggs, I'd like to hear from you.
you just hav to wait a bit longer with brown ones i cant see anything until the embryo starts to form i just put 3 in today march 5 australian time and they should hatch 23-24 of march australian time
I candled my very dark brown eggs in the darkest room I have with a flashlight...around 10th day..works for me..
I too candle my dark brown eggs in a dark room, using a very bright flashlight and often times I use a funnel or tube of some type to narrow down the light to a single beam of light. (i.e. paper towel roll) When I can't see through them, that seems to work. Good luck, PeggieK.
I have had really good luck candling ,by using an 8 inch terracotta pot , upside down over a flash light or a lamp. I do it in a dark room. I place the egg on the hole in the bottom of the pot and I can see through the egg nicely!
I tried again, using a large tin can with a hole in the bottom over a lamp bulb. It was still difficult to see much, but I could see a little development in a few of them. Most of them are very dense though.
Also, some of them are the green Auracana (spelling ?) eggs and I couldn't see thru them at all.
I've been having some difficulty keeping my incubator at a consistant temp this time, so I can't really be sure I'm doing much good with this batch. I guess we'll see when the time comes.
I always candle my incubating eggs around the 4th or 5th day and again around the 10th day. I have Rhode Island Reds and a couple Barred Rock. I don't have any problem with candling the eggs which are brown. I am a teacher assistant. We incubated eggs in the classroom and I wanted the children to be able to see, the best they could, what was going on in the inside of the egg at different stages. I designed my own egg candler and had my dad to build it. It was very inexpensive to make. I won't go into details on how to build it on here, but if you would like to know more about this, email me at pjcs710@earthlink.com.
I have just bought an incubator and 6 bantams eggs , I receive them in 2 days time, I am a beginner in egg hatching ? so hear goes, At home I have 6 Ducks abought 3 years old so I am going to try their eggs when I now little Drake is performing.
that sounds so exciting tell us how it goes
It is 12 45am in England, I am now going start my incubator up for 24 hours before I use it so I will see the temp" and so on , I hope I don't burn the eggs ? I think it will be fun. I will give you all a running commentary on the subject as to how I get on. It is snowing and windy so I am being lazy and I am on the computer I should go and do some work ? shouldn't I
Candleing green eggs is very hard. You can see the air sac though > I watch for shrinkage of the air sac . Dead eggs won't shrink as quickly as eggs with live chicks in them. I do not throw out any of the green eggs but I do the nose test. If you open the door of the incubator and there is a different sort of smell you may have a bad egg. Check for swetting of the eggs and sniff each one until you find the bad one. With green or blue eggs its the only way to go.
Linda
mommagoose - - - that is exactly what works for me when in doubt. The 'ole sniff test works everytime. Wheweeeeeee. Yuck.
weimac, tell us about your new eggs.........we all love to hear people's stories and all about their flock! :-) And about that work, nah - - - it will wait on you, I bet no one else is going to do it! lol
Belinda
Hi all,
My eggs arrived, On the 24th of March I put them in the incubator. Ive been turning them 3 times a day, The water in the incubator is drying up but I am not sure if I keep adding water when it does? the instructions are not very clear about the water so I am hoping some one out there can tell me. So far the temperature seems correct. This is day 3 all seems to be going OK I think? That was good advice about the nose test I will remember that.
weimac - - - congrats on your egg arrival. YES, you DO want to fill up the water, and keep it full. Do you have a hygrometer to measure the humidity level? You want your eggs to be somewhere between 55% - 65% for the first 18 days and then 65%-75% on days 18-21. What are your temps running? Be sure to keep them around 99.5-100.5 at all times. If I can help at all, please feel free to contact me. :-) I have a little over 100 eggs in my three bators right now, so I am near the house at all times! lol Best of luck!
Belinda
Dear Belinda,
In the Incubator I have a thermometer and it says in the instructions to have it on 101*F(37.5*C) and that the temperature it reads, Is that to high? I don't have a hygrometer I don't know about them? I am pleased I did one thing right I did fill it up with tepid water before I had gone out. Thank you for your help I will certainly be calling on you, 100 eggs my goodness that's a lot my incubator is only a we one. I appreciate your help.
Irene.
Irene,
Ok, now about that incubator..................first things first, tell me more about what type you have. Please, mam. That will help me establish exactly what your temps need to be. The temps I gave you are for a "forced air" bator. If you have a still air bator, it will indeed need to be higher. If you don't have a hygrometer, you might think about getting one unless it is built into your bator? They are very reasonably priced and WELL worth the money. HOORAY for filling up your water, you may have saved your eggs. :) Please feel free to dmail me anytime with questions or you can reach me via email at bkstarnes@earthlink.net. I enjoy helping others out as I had LOTS of help getting to where I am at now. :-) Have a great day!
Belinda
Dear Belinda,
Sorry I could not get back to you sooner. The CHICKTEC COVINA 20 INCUBATOR, Specs- Electronic thermostat allows easy temperature can be adjusted according to the fixed glass thermometer supplied, mounted on the inside canopy. The silicon covered heating element together with the efficient smooth running fan ensures even distribution of heat. Power consumtion 100 watt. Sizes 400 x 325 x 260. Thank you for all the help I will need it Irene. P.S. It has water in it Ha Ha.
I use an LED flashlight for candling.
Works great on any color eggs.
Oh my, here goes my story. First I got the chickens, then the varmits thought they were meat on a stick. We bought bigger Chickens; they finally got big enough to run and I didn't get any eggs. Finally we are getting about 7 hen eggs a day and 1 duck egg. Well, for some reason the duck egg is missing every day now. We built a candler, yeah right. I guess we are looking at the eggs to soon cause we surely do not see anything. We want to grow a small # of chicks, what kind of bater should we get. I was so happy to find this site, thank you for starting it. Becky
hi Becky. there are a LOT of threads right now on candling, many with links to ggod info and pictures.
you can't see anything candling an unincubated egg.
there are many types of bators. depends on $ and number of eggs you want to hatch. and make sure you have a brooder ready.
this was a good thread, glad you found it! hope others do too!
h ello and welcome to this site i made this thread when i first started out here with all the same questions annd because of this site all of my questions now hav answer and im sure yous will to............welcome
Thanks! I am glad that I got replies. I was worried because of the dates. A brooder is a setting hen? We only want to incubate a couple dozen eggs. I see ones that turn automatically and then there are seperate egg turners? I am confused. The clerks at the farm store are absolutely no help. We built our own candleing box and I turned out all the lights, still couldn't see anything. Glad to find out that one can't see anything in unfertilized eggs. Thank y'all so much. Becky
Hi littleredhen! A "brooder" is an enclosure (maybe a box, maybe just a defined draft-free space) with a heat source (usually a hanging heat lamp) and food and water where chicks are kept for a few weeks until they fledge and can keep themselves warm. A "broody" is a hen that is "broody", that is she wants to brood or sit on eggs. It is bad to have a broody if you want eggs, because a broody hen won't lay while she thinks she is hatching eggs. But it is good to have a broody if you have eggs from some other source that you want to hatch. Some breeds bred for egg laying (e.g. Leghorns) don't go broody and won't sit even on any eggs, even their own. Other breeds, like Silkies and Cochins, are very broody and will sit on and raise anything, even the eggs of other species. Some people keep a few Silkies around just to hatch the eggs of their non-broody breeds. Thats about all I know.
This message was edited Mar 15, 2008 12:16 PM
Becky, it isn't that the eggs are unfertile, just that they haven't been heated to above 80 degrees yet. generally you incubate eggs that are less than 7 days old and have been kept cool, below 60 degrees. don't wash them. once you begin incubation, you can begin candling at 3 days, then 7, 14, and 18 days.
i recommend you bite the bullet [like i did] and buy a set from Meyer Hatchery. It is an incubator [still air hovabator] with and egg turner, and a hatcher [forced air hovabator]. get you a cool light candler and a book on guide to hatching.
with shipping i spent less than 250. i am not disappointed. holds up to 42 eggs. and with the separate hatcher you don't have to set them all at once.
my husband built a candler. but the one i bought, you can candle without removing the eggs from the turner, and without total darkness. makes a HUGE difference.
if after using this once you don't need it anymore, someone will galdy buy it from you.
tf
Gosh, y'all have been so generous with your help. I ordered the incubator and the light. I will be ready whenever the hens are. You wouldn't think that I was raised on a chicken farm. But, then, that was well over 50 years ago and we bought flats of new chicks every spring. I don't remember sitting hens just the ones that got their heads chopped off. Our neighbor had a hen house, but I didn't have anything to do with it.
I just retired from Miami, FL to MI and we have gotten into animal rearing. Just acquired a 4 yr old Llama and a 1 1/2 yr old Alpaca. Both males. So am learning about them also.
The duck was laying and has quit. She didn't sit. Is she done laying for the spring?
Give me a set of books and I can balance them without hesitating, but this animal thing is so much more exciting and rewarding. Becky
congrats Becky! now get some good books on how to raise the, you know, for when your internet connection is down!
that depends, what kind of duck?
llama & alpaca, hmmm , now you need some goats to keep them compnay!
our muscovy family picture...
i just have cchooks and one sheep called amy and a dog and 2 cats and 4 long neck turtles
Hey, TF, I didn't know Muscovies came in red with short beaks. That's a fine looking duck you have there.
Ohhhhhh, I see now, it's not a duck after all, it's a duck wannabe. LOL
she'd be a duck if you wanted her to...that is Friend. she loves everybody! & the camera too, can't keep her out from under-foot...
dose she like to sit
she hasn't gone broody. but if she could, she would sit in my lap. i just don't sit down long enough outside!