I am new to the chicken business (I only have seven chickens right now). I have been reading The Coop message board for a couple of weeks now and i have seen you refer to something called "Candleing". I feel silly asking this but can someone please explain what candleing is.
-SHM

Hi Sandra,

You candle an egg to see if it is fertile and if a chick is developing inside. You can also candle eggs to look for blood spots or defects if you sell eggs -- although I'm finding that easier said than done with brown eggs.

To "candle" an egg, you hold it up to a bright light at the large end of the egg and you can actually see inside. A regular fresh egg will look pretty clear or with a white egg, you might see a hint of the yolk in there. When eggs are being incubated, you can candle them a couple of times through the process and see blood veins and eventually a large dark area that is a chick inside.

Hope that helps explain it a little bit. If you ever give it a try, the thing to remember is that you don't want a really HOT bulb right up against the egg. We built a little candler which is basically a small box with a light fixture mounted inside. We plug it in and hold the egg up to a 1 1/4" hole we drilled a few inches away from the light bulb.

Susie

For most eggs a 3/4 inch Maglite flashlight and a bit of the gray foam insulation wraped around the business end and sealed with duct tape is good enough. This foam insulation is the stuff you wrap water pipes with to keep them from freezing and you can get it at hardware stores. You don't have to tape the insulation to the flashlight just make a light tight tube secured with duct tape. Turn on the flashlight and hold the foam tube and the flashlight with one hand.

You can make the simple box candler, but the more perfect you can make the hole the better. The less light that gets out from around the egg the better it is to see inside the egg. So if the egg can fit snugly inside the hole that is the best. It is easiest to candle in a darkened room.

You can start to accurately see something at around 4-5 days, but if you want to make sure, if you candle at 9-10 days you should have a nice network of veins on the inside of the egg and the embryo should be a definite spot inside the egg. It will often swim around in reaction to the light.

Thank you for clearing this up :)
-SHM

I'm new also, is candleing the only way to tell if an egg is fertile? For instance, I have 6 female and 1 male goose, how can I tell if I should eat the egg, or try to incubate it?