Candling An Egg

What is candling an egg?

Simply put candling an egg is applying light to the side of an egg to see what’s inside. It’s kind of like peeking at your Christmas presents before Christmas……………. Well actually it’s nothing like that.

In order to determine if the eggs laid are fertile, you must ” candle ” them. This is a very easy process but care must be taken not to shake or jolt the eggs, this can kill the embryo.

The technical term for this is “Addle”. Addling is a method used by farmers and others to simply control the bird population. If you want your eggs to hatch don’t addle them!

I chose a small pen flashlight to candle the eggs. I picked it up at The hardware store for a few bucks. I tried to photograph the candling but could never get a good enough picture due to the lack of light. I have made some computer drawings to help explain what you will see when candling the eggs.

A non-fertile egg will just look like a plain old egg. Look at this illustration below.

A fertile egg will look much different. You will see a maze of spider- like veins running all throughout the egg. Look at this illustration below.

Now keep in mind this is what I have seen with my cockatiels, other birds species will vary greatly. Also remember that it takes about seven days of incubation to be able to see anything in the eggs.

As a fertile egg grows the egg will be darker and darker when candled. The air pocket will grow larger. The yolk will get smaller. The yolk is actually absorbed by the chick and it helps sustain the chick in it’s first few hours.

I hope you enjoyed this article!

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