Incubating Chicken Eggs: Candling and Hatching

In my recent post, Incubating Chicken Eggs: Start Hatching from Home, I gave you a bunch of reasons why you should hatch your own chicks and how to get the process started!

This post about egg candling and hatching will be part two, covering what to do the second week through the end of the 21 days of incubation. (So if you haven’t read part one, head over there first!)

I advised you to mark your start date on the calendar. This will be your tool to know when to start egg candling!

What is Egg Candling?

Candling is simply shining a light against your egg, checking to see if it is fertilized and growing properly for the time of incubation. The tiny chick embryo changes amazingly fast, so you can tell whether your egg is on time or not.

You can purchase fancy a store bought egg candler, but why would you want to do that when you can make your own with stuff you already have?

How to Make Your Own Egg Candler

We have used this method for years. In fact, my husband has probably hatched literally hundreds (maybe thousands) of chicks as he was growing up, and always used this method! So it’s safe to say that this works for us just fine.

It’s super easy, and you have all the equipment already:

Flashlight

Tape (this is even optional)

Aluminum foil

Here it goes: Shape a small piece of aluminum foil over the light end of the flashlight. Form it to fit an egg shape. (Use an egg as your model.) Tape the edges so you won’t loose the aluminum foil, but the foil usually holds without it.

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Ta-da!

The Candling Process: When Should You Start Candling Eggs?

As I said earlier, you will need to candle your eggs to see which eggs are developing properly. Do you have a viable chick embryo? Candling is the easiest way to find out.

We usually candle our eggs on Day 10 at first. Any earlier than day 7, you will not get too definite of an answer as to whether the egg is going to be a healthy chick. Day 7-10 will be a better more reliable view.

I have attached this handy visual that shows proper embryo development. This is a neat resource to look at to see where you should be with your chick growth.

Remember when I said the calendar will be an important tool? This is why. Now, if you faithfully gather eggs every day, you will have pretty much the same embryo development throughout your incubator. But if you gathered some here and there, and weren’t very positive when your egg was laid, you could possibly have a few days variance in the development. We have personally seen this. So just be aware that if one looks just a teensy bit behind…save it just in case! It may be viable even though it’s not quite up to speed with the other eggs.

Candling the Egg

The process is simple. You will open the incubator lid, and gently candle each egg.

It’s best to do this at rotating time.

I forgot to mention to turn out the lights! A dark room is necessary for really seeing the embryo well!

Hold your egg up to your DIY egg candler.

First, be amazed that you can see the intricate detail of the blood vessels and forming chick inside an egg! What a cool glimpse into how life is formed. Isn’t God an amazing creator?

Now, refer to your chart that I referenced above, and if your egg looks like the picture at Day 7-10, gently place the egg back into the incubator, and continue with another egg.

If the egg is completely see through, no veins, no blood, no yolk sac…it is not fertilized or did not develop properly. You will definitely want to toss it, or it will soon become a rotten egg and no one wants to deal with that.

If the egg had been fertilized, there will be veins, but you’ll need to make sure the air pocket is present as well.

White colored eggs are easier to see through, by the way. A darker colored egg will not be as easy to see. But you should still be able to see what you need to.

Reasons for Why Your Egg is a Dud

A note on disappointment: If you see that your eggs are not yielding as well as you had hoped, don’t fret. This is all part of the farming/homestead life. Disappointment will happen. But you have learned so much about incubating eggs, that next time you can look forward to refining your incubating process.

I’m not saying that failed eggs are your fault. It could simply be that the rooster and the hen didn’t have a hot date, and the egg wasn’t fertilized in the first place! Or, there could be many reasons as to why the egg stopped developing. Maybe the temperature wasn’t just right? Maybe it wasn’t handled properly?

Just be sure you are fairly meticulous about the incubation process, and that will improve your percentages with your hatch. We have never had a 100% hatch rate. It’s just how it goes. Out of 12 eggs, we may get 6-8 chicks. This is our experience.

What’s Next?

After you have candled all of your eggs, check the temps and humidity just like you would after you rotated your eggs.

Now you will have a better idea of how many chicks to prepare for!

We will sometimes candle the eggs again around day 19, to see a more fully formed chick. You don’t have to do this, though. The candling on Day 10 should be sufficient. You will probably know for sure which eggs are viable at this point. Remember to discard the bad eggs or you might regret it. Sometimes a rotten egg can explode! Yikes!

Day 19: Lockdown

On Day 18, just be extra sure that your incubator tray is full of water, and the humidity is right. This will be the last time you will rotate the eggs, then you will not touch them again.

On Day 21, or when you notice cracks in your eggs (which means they are hatching!), you will remove the little plugs on the incubator lid.

Keep an eye on them but remember not to open the lid or touch the eggs!

Day 21: Hatch Day

Today’s the day! It’s Hatch Day!

If you put your ear close to the incubator, you may be able to hear peeping! Little cracks will be noticeable on the eggs. The chicks are hatching!

You may be tempted to chip away at the shell to help the chick out, but this is not recommended! The chicks strengthen their little bodies by breaking out of their own shell.

Before you know it, little wet chicks will be lying by their shells. They will soon fluff up and start stumbling around the incubator. They will bump into their neighbor eggs, but don’t worry about that.

It may take several hours for a chick to completely hatch.

We have spent all day checking on the eggs to see who has hatched! It is so fun to walk over and see a new chick coming out of its shell. It is truly amazing how quickly they go from a helpless wet little thing to a fluffy cute chick.

Again, you might have a few that just don’t make it. There will be a fully formed chick, but it will not hatch. We never do know the reason for this, but it’s just one of those things that we count as a loss. Just be prepared that you might have to dispose of a fully formed baby chick if something goes wrong.

Now, there will be a mess. Blood and yucky stuff will come out of the egg. Just be sure you clean the incubator with hot soapy water after you are finished using it!

Congratulations!

Well folks, that’s it. You have your very own hatched chicks!

Finally, you will keep them in the incubator for another 24 hours. Then you will move them to the brooder. Have your brooder prepared with newspaper bedding, heat lamp, sugar water, and chick starter!

For the next stage of your chicken’s life, please check out A Quick Guide to Raising Chicks!

Missed part one, Incubating Chicken Eggs: Start Hatching From Home? Go back and read for the full story!

For more homestead and farm tips, head over to Farm Life!