[chuckmum]

I have just had a go at candling my six eggs from under my broody, who has had them for a week. After a bit of fiddling I have rigged up a bright lamp and a card funnel which seemed to shine through, I had all the curtains drawn and it was dark. I could see dark shadows in four of the eggs these weren't distinct black blobs just a large shape on one side taking up about half the egg. The other two larger eggs didn't seem to have anything apart from the obvious air pocket as in all. It might be the light wasn't bright enough or that I was doing it wrong! Can anyone advise me on what I might have please my children are really keen to know as this is their project. I thought it would be obvious and its not

[Nails]

Chuckmum, i normally use a flat piece of card.
When you look at the eggs, can you see little veins coming off the "Blobs" if you can it is fertile, if they look like they are just glowing then they are probably not fertile.
I am sure there is a sticky on here somewhere, but if not go to Googlem type in Candling eggs, and go to the first or second site, some great pictures and you will know straight away when you look at the piccy's
 

[UrbanG]

Hi Chuckmum,

I also had a try at incubating and hatching my own eggs 2 years ago.
(Can I say now that a 2 day power cut helped us fail at this attempt but I learn't a hell of a lot through the whole experiance)

The 2 ways we candled:
1: Empty kitchen roll tube (the inner bit) Shape it to the egg, place the egg snugly at one end and your eye at the other while pointing at a light in a dark room.
2: Cardboard box with a light in it, a egg shaped cut on the top of the box where the egg snugly sits in it without falling through. (this would be a good one to get your kids involved in as when the light is off everyone can see it instead of just one eye at a time)

In regards to how they should look I have attached one of my pictures, this was taken 12 days after incubation started. I'm pretty sure this one was going well before the power cut. But that said I did have others looking different, with some showing no black bobs and only air pockets.

Give them time, and maybe try and take a piccie to post as well.

[joyfull]

what breed of birds are the eggs from? If they are very dark shells or araucana shells you may not see anything anyway 

[chuckmum]

They are all light coloured, pekin, silkie and Brahma Bantams. I was a day ahead its only 6 days, don't know if that will make much difference?

[lisa80]

I normally leave it to 10 days then its quite obvious which ones are clear :)make sure you take the clear ones out the last thing you want is an exploding egg