Candling Chicken Eggs
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. See the video below of the chick moving around. Look closely and you can probably see some little feet kicking!
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 45,000 member community of chicken addicts: www.backyardchickens.com/forum/
Hi,everybody.My chicks are all grown up now.My hens are probably laying now.Bad news:my dad’s allergic to chickens.Good news:my dad said if I join this ‘poultry club’for a year,we can get chickens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I went on your site,Rob,and I looked at this post about a woman whose chicken crowed that morning and she had to give it up.I was close to tears in sadness and anger.I wanted to yell,”You spoiled ungreatful woman!!Look at me!!!”But I went on this site and looked up,barred rocks and buff orpingtons.My favorite chicks,Goldie and Blackie,were of those breeds.They probably laying Mrs.Joyce’s breakfast now.(scream)
YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I’m hatching-again!!!!!!!!!!!!!I read a post on back yard chickens about fertile eggs at WHOLE FOODS!!!!!!!!!!!!We have a whole foods NEAR US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I told my dad about it,and he doesn’t seem to have an objection,unless we keep them past four weeks.That’s bad but OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!But I TOTALLY forgot how to hatch eggs over the months.Any tips?
Oh I forgot here is the article about fertile eggs at vwhole foods:
http:\\www.backyardchickens.com\forum\viewtopic.php?id:201436
But I have heard how long it seems from ’set to hatch’:
http:\\www.backyardchickens.com\forum\viewtopic.php?id:213628
It honestly didn’t seem that long to me on my first hatch.Great news:I have a week off from camp so I have Wed.,Thurs.and Fri.unshceduled.Maybe one of those days we can go to whole foods and pick up the eggs!Now,to get my old incubator working………..
ARRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!After 4 months of silence,I come back here w\all my problems.I really hate to be a bother,but where can I get a incubator.My old bator has been through lightning,lots of rain and exxecsive heat.I doubt it works.And please do not tell me about building a bator!I cannot build anything to save my life.So,what do I do?
I have the nastiest hens ever. They pecked at my arms and hands when I tried to reach into their laying box. So, I now use an old ragged insulated shirt and cover the hen, lift her out of the box by her body, set her on the ground while I get eggs, candle them etc and then lift her back onto the nest. By the time she decides to complain, she’s back. Works great!
Rob,I think you should know that the hatching section in your forum (BackYardChickensForum)is overflowing with stuff about candling eggs!About fifteen members (including me)set eggs two days ago and are so anxious to candle!!One even went ahead and candled.Please go on BackYardChickens and see what all the commmotion is about!
My eggs don’t look likie that. Its like day 12 or 13 or 14 and there is a huge dark spot on the top with red veins coming off of it. i candled different. Oh my i think one of my eggys cracked! What do i do!
I am sooo excited! I got some chicken eggs from my science teacher and I made my own incubater and have been candeling them every three days or so. there gettting so big!
I was wondering some of my chicks have difficulty getting out of it”s egg what is the average time it takes for a chick to hatch? And I have tried to help them out by peeling away the shell but then the membrane gets stuck to them and dries and makes it to where they can’t move, so I tear the membrane gently but then it starts bleeding and making a mess and the chick usually dies. Should I stop helping it and just let nature take it’s course? If anyone has any answers I would appreciate them thanks.
I found an abandoned nest with a single egg in it.
It’s quite small and it’s not a chicken egg.
I’ve had it in an incubator for about 4 days now under 100F.
I’ve tried candling it but i don’t see much except for the yolk in the middle.
Can you give me some advice and maybe put up some pictures in how to candle properly and how to tell whether the chick is alive or dead. If any one can help me out please let me know!
Thanks
TANIA
I am glad that my chicken is setting eggs, She is setting 20 eggs. But is that a record or not? also give me some advise so I know what to do thanks. : )
hey over there!!!! I have been a member of BYC for about a year and have eggs on Day 18. There is no fog on the glass from humidity is that bad? There’s usually fog.
Thanks.
Well I have two chicks now. When do I move them to the brooder?
Thank you for putting your photos and technique on the web! I have a flock of mixed brown egg layers and one barred Wyandotte rooster. Early this month two hens went broody–an Australorp and a Brahma. We tried to continue collecting the eggs as usual, but finally the terribly sad expression on the face of the Brahma each time I took the eggs got the better of me.
The trouble is, the pencil marks indicating the eggs to remain with the brooders wears off, particularly under the Brahma for some reason, so tonight I couldn’t tell half her eggs apart.
I’ve never candled eggs before, but your directions and photos made it clear–the new eggs look QUITE a bit different than the 13-day old eggs! So I know that they’re either baby chicks, or rotting–too bad I didn’t find the site earlier!
Hey Tyler,
According to my book, twenty is a bit too many eggs for even a large hen to manage. If isn’t big enough to cover all the eggs, as she rotates from inside to out, the outer ones can get cold and die. You could lose the whole clutch.
Carla Emery says 14 eggs for a large, well-feathered hen, eight for a bantam or poorly-feathered one.