I thought it would be a good addition to the Bluebirds 101 Section to have a thread on Egg Candling.
Occasionally, someone will have a clutch of eggs that are taking longer than usual to hatch, and they wonder if they should clean out the nest and dispose of the eggs. In such circumstances, to be absolutely certain before disposing of eggs that are still being incubated by the female, you could try "candling" one or more of them.
Candling is a misnomer, because you don't really use a candle at all. It's a way of seeing what's going on inside the egg by shining a bright light through the egg.
Here is a web page that shows a method of candling chicken eggs, and some pictures of what to look for: Candling Pictures by The Easy Chicken.
Making the decision to candle eggs is not an easy one. There's always the possibility of damaging an egg that really is viable. For that reason great care should be taken when retrieving an egg from the nest. Also - if using an incandescent bulb do NOT leave the egg in contact with the bright light for more than a few seconds - just long enough to determine what might be going on inside. Don't try to take pictures unless you are certain that the egg is NOT viable. You could "cook" the egg in a matter of a minute or so.
Here's a thread from the archives that explains how I candled some eggs that I suspected were duds. Fantastic Four Are Flops. Once I was sure the eggs were duds I did take some photos just to show what you can see when you candle an egg.
If anyone has any experiences with egg-candling, or photos they'd like to share, please contact me so I can add them to this thread.
Occasionally, someone will have a clutch of eggs that are taking longer than usual to hatch, and they wonder if they should clean out the nest and dispose of the eggs. In such circumstances, to be absolutely certain before disposing of eggs that are still being incubated by the female, you could try "candling" one or more of them.
Candling is a misnomer, because you don't really use a candle at all. It's a way of seeing what's going on inside the egg by shining a bright light through the egg.
Here is a web page that shows a method of candling chicken eggs, and some pictures of what to look for: Candling Pictures by The Easy Chicken.
Making the decision to candle eggs is not an easy one. There's always the possibility of damaging an egg that really is viable. For that reason great care should be taken when retrieving an egg from the nest. Also - if using an incandescent bulb do NOT leave the egg in contact with the bright light for more than a few seconds - just long enough to determine what might be going on inside. Don't try to take pictures unless you are certain that the egg is NOT viable. You could "cook" the egg in a matter of a minute or so.
Here's a thread from the archives that explains how I candled some eggs that I suspected were duds. Fantastic Four Are Flops. Once I was sure the eggs were duds I did take some photos just to show what you can see when you candle an egg.
If anyone has any experiences with egg-candling, or photos they'd like to share, please contact me so I can add them to this thread.
