Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Having been really patient and waiting for Day 10 to candle the 24 eggs in the incubator.... I have a question.
First of all, 12 are from my hens, and 12 are ones I bought.
How long can I wait to see if there would be a dark mass forming? Or is Day 10 the day?
Just wondering if some eggs are late. I have 4 that are "iffy".

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This might be a "never mind"! But chime in, anyone, if you have different info.
It would help if I read the information I collected last year before posting!
I guess I can leave those 4 eggs for another 3-4 days and candle them again to be sure whether or not there is life.

What colour is the shell, if a light coloured shell you should have no problem telling the ones that are good. I don't know why you waited to day 10 its easier to check at day 4 when you can clearly see the spider.

The shells are beige.
All 4 are from my Lombardy purchase, darn it all.
I waited because I wanted to.

This may help ...
https://incubatorwarehouse.com/egg-candling

So, I would leave them. I generally leave the eggs longer unless they are completely clear and I can see the yoke. I've been fooled before and had chicks hatch from eggs that I thought weren't developing. It doesn't hurt anything in your incubator.

Jaye wrote: ↑

Thu May 16, 2019 8:09 am

This may help ...
https://incubatorwarehouse.com/egg-candling

Thanks Jaye, that's an informative site.

Kbr42 wrote: ↑

Thu May 16, 2019 8:25 am

So, I would leave them. I generally leave the eggs longer unless they are completely clear and I can see the yoke. I've been fooled before and had chicks hatch from eggs that I thought weren't developing. It doesn't hurt anything in your incubator.

Thanks KB. And some of the shells are dark and seem a bit thick for the light to penetrate. So I'll give them another day or two.

KimChick wrote: ↑

Thu May 16, 2019 9:16 am

Kbr42 wrote: ↑

Thu May 16, 2019 8:25 am

So, I would leave them. I generally leave the eggs longer unless they are completely clear and I can see the yoke. I've been fooled before and had chicks hatch from eggs that I thought weren't developing. It doesn't hurt anything in your incubator.

Thanks KB. And some of the shells are dark and seem a bit thick for the light to penetrate. So I'll give them another day or two.

I leave them until day 18 and chart the air sac...I should have been a little clearer.

I find with the ameraucana eggs the longer they are in the incubator the harder it is to tell, cause they all start to darken up and look the same. It doesn't hurt to leave them in even the full 21 days as long as you started with fresh eggs. The only thing is at the end of your hatch I often crack the eggs open to see what went wrong and I don't know if you've ever had an egg explode on you but they smell very very bad. LOL
No disrespect meant , just wondered if 10 days was a special number for you. I could never wait 10 days, I can barely wait 4 days.

kenya wrote: ↑

Thu May 16, 2019 10:21 am

I find with the ameraucana eggs the longer they are in the incubator the harder it is to tell, cause they all start to darken up and look the same. It doesn't hurt to leave them in even the full 21 days as long as you started with fresh eggs. The only thing is at the end of your hatch I often crack the eggs open to see what went wrong and I don't know if you've ever had an egg explode on you but they smell very very bad. LOL
No disrespect meant , just wondered if 10 days was a special number for you. I could never wait 10 days, I can barely wait 4 days.

Oh, I just wanted to practise a bit of restraint so I could see something definite. Some of the shells on my hens eggs seem pretty solid because when I candled at 10 days, I had a very clear view of the size of the air sac, but I had to look really hard to see any spidering or dark masses.... unlike last year when I had a better view.
The eggs in question are barred rock; so I'll keep them in the incubator as long as I don't smell anything rotting, or I'm sure there is nothing growing.