Candling Chicken Eggs

Posted onAuthorRob95 Comments

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.

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).

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/

95 thoughts on “Candling Chicken Eggs”

  1. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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!

  5. 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?

  7. 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.

  12. 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

  13. 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.

  14. 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!

  17. 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.

  18. 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

  21. 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!

  22. 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

  23. 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.

  24. Where can you find a really good flashlight?How big should the embryo be after 1week of inqubation

  27. 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!

  28. Yes. Join backyard chickens! Hey Rob I mean Nifty! I found this surfing the BYC history page.

  31. Hey Chantelle, join the backyardschicken for more information. seems ya eggs have gone bad.
    To Nifty-stuff what shoild be the exact size and weight of an apppropriate egg?
    Rob wnat do u have to say?
    lu_mai4@yahoo.com

  32. Pingback: Misc update « Philly Girl on… a farm in Missouri!

  33. This site is making me feel real stupid. I’m 54 years old and never really questioned what made the eggs edible and what made others to hatch chickens. I had just bought some eggs from a local farm and most of them were nice and bright yellow. But then I cracked another one open and there were some feathers. So do the eggs just come out everyday and if the chicken mates with the rooster then they could be fertile? If so, then egg farmers must segregate the hens from the roosters, right? At the farm I bought from, all of the chickens roamed freely with the roosters. Is that why some were growing chicks inside? Are fertile eggs OK to eat and if so, what is the time period during which it is OK to eat them? I never thought breakfast would require this much thinking. It’s OK to use my email address. Jay

  34. Jay, some really good questions! I’d suggest you post them on http://www.BackYardChickens.com/forum to get some really great advice, but to your main questions:

    1) Chickens don’t need roosters to lay eggs, but if there are roosters the eggs will probably be fertile
    2) The fertile eggs don’t usually develop unless they are in warm and humid conditions. If the conditions are right, the fertile eggs can certainly develop (only 21 days from egg to hatching chick)
    3) Many places sell fertile eggs. They just keep them cool and dry so they don’t develop. From what I’ve read there is nothing better or worse about fertile eggs that haven’t developed.
    4) You can eat an egg / chick at any point in development… nothing changes that will necessarily hurt you… it just may not be as pleasing to eat a partially formed chick. Some cultures actually incubate the eggs and eat the partially formed chick called balut. Sounds gross if you ask me, but very common in some countries. See this article on wikipedia (not for squeamish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut )

  35. HELP! We are trying to candle 11 eggs left in nest boxes on the day our beloved hens were killed by dogs! QUESTION: Should the flashlight be UNDER the egg or should the flashlight be shined through the large or small end of the egg in order to determine fertility. Our BROWN eggs have been in an incubator now for 8 days and all we can see is what appears to be a solid somewhat darker round shape floating near the top – when we look down upon the eggs while they are laying on their sides. If there are veins, we’re not seeing those, but hoping perhaps our flashlight is not a strong enough light. IS THERE HOPE?? Sad & lonely & badly missing our beloved chickens! Dee’s family

  38. i have had six mallard duck eggs for three 2 full days (almost 3). i tried to candle them and they still look like day 1 on this site. is it because they grow slower than chicks do in eggs or did i do something wrong?

    please reply =)

  40. I’m doing a science project on chicks.My eggs are 15 days old.I can’t wait to bring them to school tomorrow.
    Just one problem:every time I open the incubator the tempature goes crazy down.
    Is this bad?
    Other than that everything is good.My mom said the eggs are getting heavy!

  43. hi my name is ashley and i am a year 11 gcse student for one of my studies we were given 2 eggs each and sadly only one of my eggs hatched the problem with the chick that hatched is that it has rye disease??? i have tried to research this but no luck at all its neck is bent upwards and runs backwards when it neck is bent backwards and ideas on how to cure or help my chicken ?? please let me know
    ashley

  44. zuri i just read your comment the only thing i recomend is turing the temperature down slowly before you bring the eggs out then turn the temperature back up so there is no rapid drop in temperature.

  45. Wonderful advice to my problem,everyone,but now they are too old to turn.I have a new problem.The eggs are at school now,and I am worried the kids who get there before me might “just look”at them and mess it up or impair the eggs in some way.
    One time I was checking the eggs and someone kicked it!Then everyone was blaming each other.One kid said,”You know what REAL mother hens do when someone threatens their eggs?Your mom said you took care of the eggs like a hen.”He meant get angry.What can I do?HELP!I need the advice by tonight!

  46. We will try to be as careful as possible around the eggs and incubator. We are excited to see if the eggs will hatch. It looks like one is cracking!!!
    Thanks for trusting us around your awesome science project!!!
    Good Luck Zurster.
    Your friends…

  47. Thank you!!!!! I will defenetly trust you from now on.And Mrs.Decker,thanks for letting us go online.It stinks that the viedo didn’t work.

  49. MY CHICKS HATCHED!!!!!My teacher called this morning.We have nine!!They are peeping.We named four chicks.Pip,Color,Goldie,and Brownie.Wee problem.Two needed to be handhatched.One of them(hand) hatched too early.His\her stomach
    was open!Can we help him\her?Will he\she make it?And please answer directly
    instead of saying,”Go on_______________________________.”And Eli,were you talking to me?

  50. I recently started getting serious about raising chickens bought older hens and got baby chicks from the local farm store. I also got a Brower top hatch incubator which seems to be working fine. Candled 23 eggs today and so far i think they are all doing fine.It was day ten. I have some hens who tried to lay on some eggs here and there but they do not stick with it. I know I’m feeding them plenty they get 3 diff kinds of feed plus scraps.Every time we come out of the house the whole troop comes running.When candling the eggs i cut a hole in the side of a small box and lay it on it’s side and use treble light with regular 60 watt bulb works great for me. i hope this helps thanks for posting

  51. hey i was just wondering if someone here can help me out…earlier today my sister found an egg that appears to be fertile and we heard that you have to turn the egg…how far do you turn?we marked the top and everything but we dont want it to die.whats the temp have to be for the assumed mallard egg?any help would be appreciated

  52. 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)

  53. 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?

  54. 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………..

  55. 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?

  56. 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!

  57. 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!

  58. 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!

  59. 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!

  60. 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.

  61. 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

  62. 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. : )

  63. 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.

  65. 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! 🙂

  66. 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.

  67. i have had 5 fertile chicken eggs for 3 days now and when i shine the light through them all i see is a dark air bubble at the big end of the egg and a dark ball in the middle of the egg is my egg ok SOS HELLP please 🙂 (ch.arlie@live.co.uk)

  68. My eggs usually stop wiggling so much after day 14. They are just huge masses that I can’t look into. I almost chucked two that I thought were dead but I kept because I though a few days longer in the incubator wouldn’t cause any harm. Those two eggs did hatch, they were alive and healthy. I love watching the eyes in eggs rotate to see the flashlight when I shine the light in. I have to google candling to get my full though. I read handling them to much decreases the chance of them hatching because the oils on your hands rub on the eggs. Washing your hands is great but you know washing with soap doesn’t wash away all the germs.
    Anyway, about helping chicks hatch. I hatched my 10 in an incubator. I read you can help them if they haven’t made any progress in 12 hours and sounds distressed. 6 of mine hatched while I was sleeping, but before I went to bed I made sure the air hole was secure enough for them to breath through. They say you shouldn’t help hatch chicks because they are going to be weak chicks and more likely to die when out. I did a lot of work for a chick that wasn’t making any progress, but there wasn’t any blood, I poked off pieces of the shell with a blunt nail file in a bathroom with a steamy shower running to decrease the risk of the membrane drying to the chick. Then I placed a moist but not wet washcloth over the hole while I brought it back to the incubator. I had helped it 25% of the way… I broke a lot more off than I meant to. I also saw the chicks pecking at the egg shells of the chicks that were trying to hatch, peeling the shell off for them. So, he had a huge helping hand. He is a rooster and is now at the bottom of my flock. I named him Mellow Yellow and he is always with the hens by the nesting boxes or trying to sleep under a tree, but he is still alive and eager to mate hens. He just has never been very active. One of his littermates will run around my house 4 times in a row without even taking a break and without any known reason for why. That one is a hen. I won’t hatch Mellows chicks though. I read weak chicks turn into parents of more weak chicks. I love all of my chickens though, and I hate the thought that I might never of had Mellow Yellow if I hadn’t helped him out when he was late, tired, and about to die in the shell. (I did have one die in the shell that I didn’t help out when I should of because I was to afraid to try. It ended up dieing, so that’s what happens if they are late hatching and their peeps are getting softer and softer and less and less often. A dead chick anyway. So, why not help it if you can?)
    Thank you for all the cute chick stories and egg pics!

  70. Rob, if you’re still on this site, I need your help.
    I’m thinking of hatching again but can’t find much good info. Where can I get good info?

  72. Okay, I’m taking the incubator for a “test run”. I placed a store bought egg inside to ‘incubate’. Is it possible a chick could be growing inside? Just wondering.

  73. Hi, just found this site while looking for how to candle eggs, I’m 12 years old and I got a small incubator for Christmas. I love chickens and this will be my first incubation not by hen. I candled it with my Dad’s strong LED flashlight, 12 days and all I see is the airpocket dark and a dark shape in th middle like the yolk or something, is it fertile, PLEASE HELP, I’m desperate.

  74. Hi everyone.
    I just figured it would be nice to have a chicken forum where you can get questions answered (and just chat with other chicken freaks). Does anyone know of a forum like this?Nothing too slow,please. It drives me nuts when there’s only 5 members online at any given time and the last post in a section was made a month ago.

  75. so I open my incubator to candle them and it stank! day 14. I candled a egg that had a black mass on top and whenever i moved the black blob also moved. also this egg is cracked i think there was black goo or yelow at bottom of incubator. Do i take it out?

  76. I’m 13 and this is my first time hatching eggs! I’m so excited! But my 3 year old brother unplugged my bator and it was only day two….how much damage did that do? And there is also orange globby stuff on the outside of one of the eggs….what is it? EWE! If anyone can help please reply!

  77. Please send me informattion about how to make incaburater and its operation, Egg checking tenchiques vial email.

  78. can chicks can come out from egg without hen sitting on egg and with due proper care and heat on egg? Reply fast

  79. I got eggs from three different hens. I am sure a couple of the eggs are not viable because I can notice the red ring on them. There are a couple that are heavy and look like your 2 week old eggs… don’t know if the embryos are alive. Other eggs look fine (veins and nice dark spots – they look like your 4-5 day old ones). What should I do? Should I let them all hatch at different times? Which ones should I keep if not? I’m a firt timer and have two kids on my back every time I approach the incubator :/

  80. Ok, so how can I tell if my eggs were too far gone. What I mean is that my hen was sitting on 21 eggs in a place where she could in no way take care of them after they hatched. I moved all 21 eggs after the first one pipped. Only 5 hatched. I now have 4 eggs that I tried to get another hen to sit and they still haven’t hatched. In fact the new hen layed 13 more eggs and now I don’t know which is which. I have candled them, all 17. I can’t tell which is which and I don’t want an explosion in my incubator. Help Please.

  81. hey guys can u help me… how can i check if my chick is alive at day 19? i forgot to chek them @ 12 noon to 4 pm and the temperature went up @ 102.2 Farenhiet….. i candled them but i don’t see anyone of them moving…

  82. I candle my eggs and it’s day 21 and I hear chirping. But the thing is that the chick inside the chicken egg is still tiny. What is wrong? I’m scarred that none of them will hatch, but I am keeping my faith in Christ.

  83. Hey Im 13 and this is my first time incubating eggs. I have 14 eggs in all, (11 chickens-marans and amaracaunas) and 3 ducks. When I candle them, they look pretty small but there are little veins and embryos. But the thing is, they seem to be surrounded by a circle but the embryos and veins are still there. There is no fowl smell but I see no movement an the eggs are at day 14. I REALLY don’t want any to explode in my incubator cause I worked really hard. Also, some of the eggs have wet-looking spots on them. I keep a steady temp of 99-100 degrees but it goes down to 97 every once and a while. Are my chicks alive?

  84. Hi Rob,

    I was wondering if you would allow me to link one or two of your candling pictures for my blog. I’m discussing candling burrowing owl eggs at a zoo, and your photos are some of the best out there for seeing the progression and what to look for.

  85. Hey Anne, thanks for the note. Sure, go ahead and use the images but please attribute and link back to this page.

  86. Hey guys I’m incubating eggs for the first time! I have 9 eggs, but only3 look fertile. Should I take out the ones that don’t look fertile!?

  87. Rob,

    I am incubating chicken eggs for the very first time and I need your help! I put nine in the old homemade bator, but only 3 look fertile. I don’t want any to explode! Should I take out the ones that don’t look fertile or leave them? My incubator is a styrofoam cooler and my temp. Is always 99.7 and my humidity is usually about 42%-57%. I am so thankful for your help! I just wanted to have your opinion!
    ChucktheChick

  90. @ chuckthechick
    If you can guarantee there non fertile then just remove them but if you cant be positive then don’t risk it as you may loose out in a chick !
    While I’m here I have had a chick with rye diease anyone got any way of helping cure this basically means my cream egg colour chick rests its head on its back and walks backwards quite a bit anyone help on that one ?

  92. Thank you Eggcelent!!! Oh my gosh I’m so excited. I would love to help, but I don’t know what Rye Disease is! Sorry. And does anyone know if Dark Cornish Bantams usually have lung diseases? I have two of those and those are the eggs that look fertile. I also have a lot of dark brown eggs and I cant see through the shell. Oh I’m so confused with someof this stuff! I thank you soooooo much and appreciate it, ChucktheChick

  94. Hi! I have hatched two eggs now. I helped both and both were fine! The one wasn’t even pipped on day27 so I cracked it and there was a beautiful, living, peeping chick! I named them Spinner and Twister!

  95. I’m new at hatching eggs. I have two fully fertilized chicken eggs but when I candle them there’s no air pockets and I can’t tell if they are breathing or not. Any suggestions?

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