Candling examples

Don't know if others have seen this page already but thought I'd post it. Has excellent photos of things you'll see when you candle an egg.
http://www.shilala.com/candling.html

MollyD

Wonderful site, MollyD!

I've been having fun there this afternoon! Lots of good info. Check out their section on how to pack eggs for shipping!

MollyD

Hi, Molly, one thing that I learned from that site about candling eggs was that they said it was "more of a comparison".

When I candled mine, I took their advice and made sure all the eggs I kept in the incubator looked the same. I guess it worked that way okay because as you can see by my posting, I had a 63.5% hatch. So, when you candle, if one egg looks very different from all the others, it is probably not viable.

Can you tell I'm getting interested in this hatching thing LOL. No extra work staying up to feed them either. With tiel babies if the parents didn't do the job the first few days you were up round the clock feeding them every 2 hours. Formula had to be prepared too and hand fed. If the parents did their job you still took over at about the 4th or 5th day if you wanted hand tamed fids (feathered kids). Then there was a bit longer time between meals. About 4 -5 hours so you actually had a chance to sleep some :-) Chicks seem like a stroll in the park compared to all that!
Won't be this year though. I want to see how it goes with my new babies before I commit to more of them.

MollyD

so, when is the big day?

They're mailing them out 5/5 or so they said. I figure I'd better be ready on 5/1 just in case.

MollyD

boy, howdy
! you are gonna be pacing the floor wuite a while!

LOL what do you mean going to! I've been pacing since I placed the order!! I'm even dreaming about chickens these days. I talk about them all the time too. It's pretty sad.

MollyD

ROFL! Well given the way my hair is some days you just might not be far from the truth!

Went shopping yesterday. Got their starter food 20%, their new food tray and the water thing you screw to mason jars. Also the vitamin-electrolyte stuff. Next trip is the lights. Now I know it's special bulbs but I can't see why I can't buy a painters light fixture for under $5. instead of the $15. light fixture the feed store is offering and just use the heat lights with them. The two things are identical but one is $10. cheaper!

Robin I lived for several years in Binghamton and for 20 years near (relative term) it in Morris ^_^

MollyD

hi Robin!

Molly, one reason is amps/voltage/house fire. don't burn down the chicken coop. 250 watt bulbs need larger amp fixtures & really big cords.

& don't anyone use an ext cord unless it is heavy/duty outside, bigger around than your light cord....

and don't dpend on just the clamp to suspend it. the little ball and screw thing can come loose when over-pivoted. so wrap your cord around something to hold the light off of combustible surfaces [or chickens] in case the light comes loose from the clamp, or the clamp gets bumped.

OK, off my soap box. better than off my rocker.

tf

just bumpingup this info..

btw tf I did check what those Wally World fixtures were rated at and they say on the label up to 250 watts so I went ahead and got mine there. Have not had any problems at all. Definitely not worth paying what the feed store wants to charge for them.

MollyD

This message was edited Jun 2, 2008 5:41 PM

good.

I really liked this site Molly. I even sent it to myself to save for later. My DH used 'other' plans for a home made egg candler, and it didn't work too well. We learned the hard way that what you are looking at when candling, when new to it......well, we didn't see what we thought we saw in one of the eggs, thought it was a bad one, and cracked it open.....oh no, we were wrong. Inside there was a chick developing....now we are pretty gun shy about making that decision. I am hoping that with the really good pictures, the good descriptions and a different candler, we will have better luck next time. Thank you for the link!

You're welcome! I thought they were pretty good pictures for us novices ^_^

MollyD

A very bright flashlight with a lens no more than an inch in diameter works just fine. A smaller diameter is also fine (think mini maglite). You need to be in total darkness, except for the flashlight. The LED bulbs are nice because they don't heat up.

Earlier this year I bought a new heat lamp at Petsmart. One thing I really like about it is that it has a dial to adjust the light output. Easier than raising/lowering the whole fixture. If you are going to use a real heat lamp bulb, be sure the recepticle is ceramic. I always make sure I get that, but I rarely use a bulb more than 60 or 75 watts. Brooding outdoors in winter is about the only time I'll use one of the 150 or 250 watt bulbs.

There are some other good sites with candling pics, but I don't know URLs offhand. Try googling. I know I have seen 4-H sites and educational sites with good pics; one had pics of viable eggs every few days through the whole incubation period.
Suze

Hi Suze. I've always worried about overheating the eggs when I candle--but the mini-mag lights didn't cut it with dark brown eggs even in a totally dark room.

Using a heat lamp is my next goal--my poor babies spend the first six weeks of their lives in the rosey glow of the brooder light. Which doesn't seem healthy. I am sure darkness is important after the first few days. Did you find the heat lamp in the reptile section?