Candleing the eggs

Eggs must be turned when they're in an incubator.  Some incubators have automatic turners.  Mine doesn't so a couple of times a day, I turn them myself.

The eggs are due to hatch on the 9th of February.  On the 6th the eggs go in "lock down".  The humidity is increased and there is no further turning. and this is the lock down part - NO OPENING THE INCUBATOR!

After a week, you have to "candle" the eggs to see how they're getting on in there.  A primitive xray if you will.  Regular chicken eggs are easy to candle. Why don't you try it at home?  You will be suprised how porous an egg shell is.  Shine a torch (flashlight) under an egg and see what you can see!

With fertile and incubating eggs there are things to look for.

This egg didn't develop at all.  Perhaps it wasn't fertile in the first place. Eggs that look like this after 9 days will be removed.

a yolker - not my photo

In the egg incubating world, and egg that looks like this during candling is called a "yolker".

You can also see if they had started and then stopped developing and died, "a quitter". Quite often they have a well defined blood ring.

a quitter - not my photo

 All yolkers and quitters need to be removed from the incubator.

a winner - not my photo

This is a winner!

You can see the little embryo safe inside, a well defined network of veins and a nice air sac at the top.

My eggs have very dark brown shells,  I discovered when trying to candle them on day 9 that detecting development is super difficult, bordering on impossible.

If I can't see what's going on inside, I'll just keep them all in and hope that the rotten ones don't poison the ones that are developing.  

Do you know how tense this is going to be on the 9th?  I'm glad I have to go to work . . . or I will finfd myself staring at the incubator and willing chicks to come out.