Recently one of my chickens went broody. You can see the story here. I decided to put my egg candling experience on a separate page, so here it is!
Here are the eggs I’m candling:
5/6/05
I’ve had the eggs since 5/4/05. We’re not sure how old they were when they arrived, but we were told that they wouldn’t really start developing until a hen was sitting on them which was two days ago.
Here is how I’m candling the eggs: I take my super high powered LED flashlight and cup my hand to make a tunnel for the light to pass through. I put the flashlight against one side and the egg against the other. It is quick and easy. Below is Alana showing me where the egg is suppose to be:
I’ve never done this before so I wanted to candle a store bought egg to use as my egg candling benchmark.
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Store Bought Egg |
One of my fertilized eggs (a few days old) |
Here Is my Egg Log. Remember, I’m not exactly sure how old these eggs are, so I’m going to say that Thursday, 5/4 is Day 1 (the first day she was on the eggs all day).
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DAY 1 |
DAY 2 |
DAY 3 |
My camera started to have a very hard time focusing on the eggs after day 3 so all the pictures came out too fuzzy to post. If / when we ever do this again I’ll be sure to use a better camera and take some better pictures
5/8/05
Today is Mother’s Day! What a great day to candle eggs and see if my hen is going to be a mother. I candled all of the 7 eggs. The three big eggs seem to all have well formed webs of veins. The 4 smaller eggs didn’t seem as developed, but all of them had what looked like developing chicks. We actually saw a tiny little beating heart in one of the large eggs. I tried to take a video, but it didn’t really come out very well. I’ve been reading that some people don’t like to handle the eggs too much, so I’m not sure if I’ll continue to candle every day. Curiosity may get the best of me though.
Here is a pic of one of the tiny eggs:
Oh, today at church a friend (the one who gave us our original chicks) mentioned that one of his hens was broody and sitting on some eggs. One of the eggs exploded under her (eggs get bacteria in them which grows and builds gass / pressure) and so they discarded all the other eggs. They went to the feed store, picked up some chicks and put them under her. She didn’t miss a beat and raised them as her own. If things don’t work out with our chicks maybe this will be a good option for us.
5/15/05
I took out all the eggs again and carefully candled all of them with my wife. Good news: we verified that all 7 eggs have moving little chicks inside. So far so good! One of the smaller eggs had an embryo that was moving so much that we decided to take a video. Click here to see a 3.5 mb video (windows media video = wmv) of the chick moving around. Look closely and you can probably see some little feet kicking!
chicken_egg_embryo_candling.wmv
5/18/05
I tried to candle three eggs yesterday and I didn’t see a fraction of the movement as I had in the videos. I’m hoping it is because it is getting too crowded in the egg to do the chickie boogie and not that they are sickly / quitting. It did seem that I saw more of a chick silhouette in the egg which is pretty cool. Another thing I noticed was “floaties” in the egg. Pieces of something that was floating / sinking independent of anything else. I wonder if this is normal.
5/23/05
We pulled out all the eggs tonight to candle them. It is probably the last time we will candle them since they will be hatching in a few days or so. The eggs were VERY dark except for the air pockets at the big end of the eggs. A few of the eggs looked as though a little bump was protruding from the dark mass into the air pocket. We looked closely for movement in each egg, but it was hard because they were so dark. For the most part every egg seemed to have at least a little bit of movement. One egg was especially dark and as I was rolling it to look for movement my wife pointed out a tiny little crack that looked like an X on the egg. This is so exciting!
For the rest of the story go HERE!
Please visit my site http://www.backyardchickens.com/ for a ton of great info on raising chickens.
Also, register with our 5,000 member community of chicken addicts: www.backyardchickens.com/forum/
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November 4th, 2007 at 7:24 am
I have a broody hen that has been sitting for almost 7 days. I recently went out to candle the eggs to see how things were going. The concern is that I candled all 5 eggs and could not see through 3 of them. I used a LED light — it is like it is not strong enough to penetrate the shell. Any ideas? This is her first time in doing this and we got eggs from a local farm that had several free range chickens. If I cant see through them should I get rid of them? She is very busy.. adjusting and turning. I dont want to depress her by taking them away. She seems very happy and content. Should I try to get some “for sure” fertilized eggs that I can candle? Help.
November 4th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Maggie Chick, I wish I knew the answer. I suggest you post this question on my forum: http://www.BackYardChickens.com/forum
November 5th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Not all flashlights are the same, check out the forum like Rob has suggested and you can find a lot. Do a search for surefire flashlights and you can see what I use.
January 27th, 2008 at 9:42 am
I bought a special candling penlight with instructions, and we could see very little except the air pocket. My eggs are blue, so I’m not sure if that makes a difference, but the photos and video posted here are amazing! We didn’t see anything like yours. We now have two chicks just hatched and we’re waiting to see if the 7 more hatch. In my opinion, our little penlight was a waste of money even though it was sold as an egg candling light. Thanks for posting this stuff. It’s really great to see!
February 5th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I have about twenty-one chicken eggs. I think something happened because they were developing fine, but on the fourth day the dot in the middle started to move. Is that bad?
February 7th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Never mined I found out that the chick is moving on its own.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I am incubating some eggs and they are about to hatch, but I don’t know if they will hatch. I hear like the chick is banging it’s beak on the egg. Someone please help! Kali.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Kaliona, hurry and sign up at BYC and post your question for one of the 6,500+ members to help: http://www.BackYardChickens.com/forum
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:13 pm
We are raising 3 turkey, 1 chicken and 1 duck egg(s), we NEED help figuring out how to hatch them, could you please e-mail me what you do @ Mommyof5wifeof1@verizon.net please,
Thanks,
Kim
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Kim, I’m no expert, but you really should post on the BYC forum in the hatching section. There are about 7,500 super smart members (and about 10 dumb ones).
Seriously though, they could help you out the best and fastest:
http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=5
March 26th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I need help I got a new baby duck and its mother wont take care of it. But it started to follow the dog around but the dog I dont think is a good life style for this duckling so any ideas on what I should do?
March 27th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Hi, it sounds very unlikely that anything will come of this but i thought for the sake of the egg i would give it 1 more try at life since i found it under a bush (warm) at my livery yard. there are many chickens and suprisingly many cockrels aswell. there are also 3 dogs which i thought may have chased the hen away before she had finished hatching as a couple of days later i was tld there was a hen with lots of eggs in my stable. i was unsure wheter or not to take the egg to the hen as i was worried she might get upset and disown her nest. so here i am with my egg which i have kept in my airing cuboard with a series of ‘hand warmers’. the egg is not white and so i’m not sure wheter i will be able to ‘candle it’ or not. everything i have done so far is what i have been advised from my reletives who have had chickens before. i am also in the process of building a mini incubator. is it too late to start this? i would really appreciate a reply to this as i would love to give this egg a chance but i am unsure that i am doing it any good at all.
please help,, and i loved watching the video of the small chick it was amazing!
thanks and if possible please reply to my email ?
thanks a lot x
March 30th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Dear kim, It may be to late, but anyway. I would think using an incubater would be the only way to hatch them. You can get incubaters at Mcmurryhatchery.com. They are pretty inspinsive. I don’t know how to spell that. here’s another thing. You can go to Allexperts.com and ask a question. Thay’re also really smart! Kali. Age 11.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Josh, He’ll be fine with the dog. I’ve had ducklings raised with chicks and cats and once they get about “teenage”, they realize they are ducks and take to the pond even though their chick buddies don’t. He/she is just looking for a mommy right now, and the dog seems a more reasonable size to him than you do!
April 12th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
my eggs have spotts win i canding then. what do i do are they bad or good or not fridle i dont know pleas help?
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
My eggs are 11 days old and look like the pics of your 3 day olds. What my problem???
April 24th, 2008 at 10:45 am
mixing breeds in the same brooding area a bad idea? I have turkeys, cornish hens and i beleive by its size some kind of batam or frissle.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:55 am
What awonderful informative sight. I have 24 eggs in the incubator and it is only the second time I have done this. Thought I would look on the internet and came across your sight. Lovely photography and a pleasure to view!
Well done
Many thanks Shraon
June 9th, 2008 at 2:55 am
my egg are ten days old and when i candle them i see a black dot help me is that good
June 9th, 2008 at 2:59 am
please email me if thats good or not
regards ramiro.jrg@gmail.com
June 9th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
im currently doing a project for my sophomore science class… im on day 8 of incubation..i just candled my eggs for the 1st time. and surprisingly they’re all alive. im so happy.. im anxiously waiting for day 21. i cant wait to see them hatch!
… its so crazy waiting to be the mother of 4 chickies!
June 17th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Hey good work over there. When I was growing up we were taught that if u tamper with eggs which the hen has started to brood as in you pick them, tilt them or anything close to ths they will not hatch. How true is this.
Lulu
June 20th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I received hens from someone about 3 weeks ago who no longer wanted them. She had a rooster but keep him. One of the hens has been sitting on a nest with all the eggs from all the hens. I went out today and gathered the little eggs that I was sure that my batans laid (the others are full size). I tried to candle them but without much luck so I decided to open one to double check and there was a baby chick in it fully formed. I quickly put the rest of the eggs back in the nest but they had been out about 20-30 minutes. I don’t have a rooster.(That I know off)Will the rest of the eggs be ok? How did they become fertile to began with. How soon will they hatch. The baby didn’t even attempt to move or breath. It has been really hot here 110 plus degress. I have them in shade and with a swamp color going but am really worred about them.
I signed up for the forum but need to know soon. HELP.
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
Where can you find a really good flashlight?How big should the embryo be after 1week of inqubation
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I am waiting for a reply on my question, lu-mai4@yahoo.com
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Hi Lulu, you’re best bet for a quick answer is to join and post your question at http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum
There are about 12,000 really nice chicken enthusiasts there to lend a hand!
June 24th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
My goodness, I must live a sheltered life not to have known this site was here! LOL But to be honest every question here has been answered many times over on backyardchickens.com…my home away from home.
Lots of pics with the answers, too. Hope to meet you all over there!
June 24th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Yes. Join backyard chickens! Hey Rob I mean Nifty! I found this surfing the BYC history page.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:21 am
Thankd Rob I will do exactly that.