Back in the day, people used candles to peer though the eggshell and into the egg. Nowadays, there are specially designed flashlights for this purpose. Regardless of how you illuminate an egg, it’s important to understand this process if you plan to hatch fertilized eggs into chicks.
The process of candling involves shining a light through the back of an egg in order to illuminate the contents. This process is easier to do in a darkened room, and it is important that your light source focus all of the light into the egg. You will need to hold the egg pretty close to your eyes to see what is going on inside.
If you hold an egg in front of your eye and then shine an ordinary flashlight into the back of the egg, you will learn quickly the benefits of using a specially designed candling light. By focusing the light only on the egg, a candling light not only provides better illumination, but it also doesn’t blind you in the process.
We offer several candlers options depending on how you plan to use them.
If you are candling eggs that you plan to hatch, you may want to think about purchasing an incubator.
You should leverage candling at several stages of the hatching process. The first time is during your egg selection, before you have started incubation. Use candling to exclude eggs with:
- Hairline cracks: increase risk of bacteria contamination and should not be incubated
- Double yolks: decrease chances of successful hatch and should not be incubated
- Blood spots: undesired genetic trait that should not be propagated
The next time candling comes into play is day 7 of incubation. At this point in time, it is a good idea to candle each of your eggs to ensure an embryo is developing. You should see a tiny dark spot with veins running out of it. If you don’t see this at 7 days, then your egg is not developing correctly and should be removed from your incubator. If the yolk appears as a dark shadow or you notice cloudy areas within the shell, then your egg is likely spoiled and should be removed from your incubator.
Finally, you may also use candling to monitor the humidity level in your incubator. If your humidity level is too low, then you will notice the air cell is too big. If humidity to too high, then the air pocket will be too small.
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