Candling Chicken Eggs

Candling is when you shine a bright light through the egg which enables you to see inside. This is a really cool thing to do during the incubation of chicken eggs. It is so difficult to wait 21 days to see those baby chicks. I was constantly wondering what was going on inside that shell. Were they fertilized? Were they developing properly or did they die off at some point? I was dying to know! 

We ordered 6 eggs but the people we ordered from (MyPetChicken.com) were nice enough to add an extra one.

 The two on the left are Partridge Penedesenca. The other lighter brown on the bottom is a Blue Splash Maran. The greenish one with an EE on it is an Easter Egger. The WHS is a White Silkie. Below that one is a Blue Silkie and the one to the right is a Silver Sebright Bantam.

We made the mistake of only ordering one of each breed we liked. If I were to do it again, I would have ordered two of each.


The pictures below are candling on day 12.

 This is a picture and an non fertilized egg. You can see the yolk at the top and the light glowing through the white making it yellow. This is the Silver Sebright Bantam. There is no chicken forming in this egg and it can be thrown away but I left mine in a little longer just to be sure.

 Here is a great picture of our Blue Silkie. You can see a lot of veining, which is a good sign of life. As of now, there is a chick growing inside this egg but there is no guarantee that it will make it til the end.

I believe this is still the Blue Silkie egg. You can see the chick is filling up the egg as well as the veining.

I don't remember which breed this egg is but the darker area is the chick. I was able to see some movement in a couple of the eggs which was very exciting!

 This is the White Silkie. Sad to say but I believe that this one has not survived. You can see the dark spot toward the top left is the beginning stages of a chick but it is much smaller than the others and has minimal veining. I left it it in the incubator for a little longer just in case and I will check again today or tomorrow. I am not feeling good about this one because I believe I have started smelling a mild odor. This could mean a rotting egg or it could just be in my head. :)

 Another picture of the potentially bad egg. I have read that you should remove any unfertilized or "expired" chick eggs by day 14 to avoid the risk of exploding which can contaminate the other eggs greatly affecting your hatch rate.

Hatch day is estimated for April 26th. I am hoping to get some video!

If anyone is familiar with bad eggs, any advice would be greatly appreciated. This is my first time hatching and I would hate to throw out any potential life.