Water candling

[WalnutHill]

For those who have heard of water candling, but haven't done it, here is a primer, and a link to a video:

1. Never water candle an egg that has externally pipped. Should be self-explanatory, but it can drown the chick.
2. Always water candle with water several degrees warmer than the egg...I use 105F.
3. To reduce the risk of egg infection, only water candle in the last few days of incubation when light candling is ineffective.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_6Hsv6OB2gtYjRRTXNzd0lyQlU/view?usp=sharing

This is a particularly feisty chick. Sometimes all you will get is a gentle rocking that makes tiny ripples. Any wiggling and wobbling means the chick is alive.

 

[cncottle]

Do you recommed doing this before lockdown as part of that process? Or only after they have passed the 21 day mark and are late?

 

[WalnutHill]

I do not recommend this unless an egg is more than 12 hours later than its siblings, or if you have experienced a severe heat spike after day 15.

This egg experienced 109F for 8 hours in a defective hatcher and did not hatch. While the chick was alive, it could not consume the gluey half cooked albumen nor absorb the hardened yolk. Of the 16 cooked eggs, 4 hatched, 2 survived to day 2 but died by day 4.

 

[cncottle]

Great! Thank you for the good advice. This is my first time incubating eggs.

 

[song of joy]

Thank you! This is very helpful.

 

[IceAngel]

For those who have heard of water candling, but haven't done it, here is a primer, and a link to a video:

1. Never water candle an egg that has externally pipped. Should be self-explanatory, but it can drown the chick.
2. Always water candle with water several degrees warmer than the egg...I use 105F.
3. To reduce the risk of egg infection, only water candle in the last few days of incubation when light candling is ineffective.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_6Hsv6OB2gtYjRRTXNzd0lyQlU/view?usp=sharing

This is a particularly feisty chick. Sometimes all you will get is a gentle rocking that makes tiny ripples. Any wiggling and wobbling means the chick is alive.

Thank you so much for this information. It proved to be very helpful.

We recently experienced sporadic power outages in our area. They occurred five times during different nights and the only evidence were blinking digital clocks. Bator temps were normal when we checked in the morning and there was no telling how low the temperature might have gotten or for how long. I fully expected the whole hatch to be ruined. However two little chicks hatched a day late. As nothing else had pipped and there was no peeping outside of the two hatchlings, I opened the bator two days later and decided to water candle.

The water candling showed slight activity in six of the turkey eggs and and half the chicken eggs. If it wasn't for your post I probably would have thrown the remaining eggs out because there didn't seem to be any sign of life before I water candled.

 

[BoiseChik]

Hello, I'm glad to find a water candling thread! I'm hatching my first batch of fertlized eggs with a broody hen. We are on day 18 and curiosity got the better of me, so I water candled all of the eggs. Out of the 14 eggs, 2 had definite bobbing motions, the rest were pretty still in the water and all of them floated except one sank right to the bottom. So is this reliable info at this stage of development? 2 eggs are alive and the other 12 probably aren't? What does the floating versus sinking mean?
Thanks!

 

[RainForestBird]

I found this amazing water candling video on YouTube:

I guess this thread answered my question about water candling before lockdown on day 18. I did it today but didn't know about the "wiggle". So xool to be able to see the chick moving inside the egg! I will have to do this tomorrow and then leave them all in the incubator with no cracking the top till I see a chick hatched (and dried)! I have an awesome mix of different eggs this time, Easter Eggers, Olive Eggerss, Sebrights, Wellsummer, Malay and Serama some are bright auburn colored, and tiny creamy colored ones which I think may be Serama or Silkies/Sizzlers.

 

[Jayson_Black]

we are on day 21 of our first hatch and boy are we anxious. I mean pretty bad. We put the eggs into lockdown on day 18. As soon as we lay the eggs down we observed significant movement from all of the eggs. However, I on day 19, 20 and 21 (today) we have seen ZERO Movement. Our Hygrometers are reading 76% and 81% but I suspect that they are reading it higher than it really is.

Our local Weather forecast for the day that one of our Hygrometers arrived was for the RH% to be just 10% yet when I first powered up the hygrometer it read 45% Much higher than forecast and I am a pretty keen weather enthusiast and have a good feel for humidity and it was nowhere near 45%. More around 15 to 30% So I expect our True RH% inside that bator is around 60% (at the absolute minimum) to 75% (Absolute max).

So very gentle taps on the bator, a little flickering with the torch and making clucking sounds does not solicit any movement at all. or at least none we could see. It's confusing because the movement we saw on day 18 was obvious. It seemed as if one chick was trying to external pip, because the whole end of the eggs shifted 5 to 10 degrees in rotation with one single movement. Since then though, nothing! So we're worried.

We are thinking about water candling, but am terrified of doing this so late. I worry about all the what if's. like: What if there is a hairline fracture that is not visible. What if the eggs are too porous and water is absorbed into the Air Cell causing chick to drown upon initial internal pip.

What do you guys think? Should I water candle? Should I regular candle? We have not candled at all since lockdown began.

the only thing I could say was that on Day 18 while candling. I felt as if the chicks looked to be too small. I expected to not be able to see very much other than the dark shadow. However, there was still lots of free space. Given this is my first time incubating, I have no references for comparison. All I can do is compare with youtube videos and still images of candling. I expected there to be almost zero room by day 18, but there appeared to be a helluva lotta room still.

So yeh guys, anything you can say to calm our nerves would be great!