First Candling
Kind of on a whim, though I had planned to do it at some point, a couple weeks ago we swung by the farm bureau and became the proud renters of an incubation set up. Well, we now have eggs warming.
And, I just had to share . . .
A few of my kids were gone, so I have dutifully turned the eggs, but put off candling until they got home.
Today we took our first try at it. Don't do it the way we first tried, with a huge floodlight type light. This would really work if you put a cardboard box with a hole over it and just used the light coming out the hole. We downsized to a flashlight and we saw a lot of this:
That spidery looking thing in the egg is the beginning of life! Very exciting. We had a few that appeared empty, but we'll check again in a couple days (or maybe tomorrow if we feel like it). I don't know how many chicks we will end up with, but we have lots of progress so far. One chick hatcher mentioned having 30 eggs with 13 that candled well, but only 3 that hatched! I hope we have a better outcome than that.
I couple sites I checked out before candling:
- The Easy Chicken for Beginners (which I need to revisit for more chick info) has some clear pictures of what I did not want to see, and a couple of what I was hoping for.
- Here is a blog posting where someone shares their candling pics and experience
Repeated comments on the second site above led me to the following site:
More to come, I am sure!
Check out Thirsty Thursday for more educational ideas
And, I just had to share . . .
A few of my kids were gone, so I have dutifully turned the eggs, but put off candling until they got home.
Today we took our first try at it. Don't do it the way we first tried, with a huge floodlight type light. This would really work if you put a cardboard box with a hole over it and just used the light coming out the hole. We downsized to a flashlight and we saw a lot of this:
That spidery looking thing in the egg is the beginning of life! Very exciting. We had a few that appeared empty, but we'll check again in a couple days (or maybe tomorrow if we feel like it). I don't know how many chicks we will end up with, but we have lots of progress so far. One chick hatcher mentioned having 30 eggs with 13 that candled well, but only 3 that hatched! I hope we have a better outcome than that.I couple sites I checked out before candling:
- The Easy Chicken for Beginners (which I need to revisit for more chick info) has some clear pictures of what I did not want to see, and a couple of what I was hoping for.
- Here is a blog posting where someone shares their candling pics and experience
Repeated comments on the second site above led me to the following site:
- My Backyard Chickens
- With Forums for chicken raisers with TONS of useful information and Q&A
More to come, I am sure!
Check out Thirsty Thursday for more educational ideas
Comments
It definitely fits as an educational experience. We are all learning tons through watching the process so closely.
~Erin