Blood Ring or Not?

[alaskanest]

I just wanted to put this out there as a first time incubater. Well, second time, but our first batch was 100% unsuccessful due to inexperience and faulty thermometers. We're trying again, not without a little trepidation. I just candled the whole batch last night at 7 days and was worried and dismayed as I thought I was seeing many with a thick ring like mass unevenly around the middle and clear at the pointy, downward end. They did have veins and there was movement in some, but I was afraid most of the batch had failed and I was seeing blood rings. I looked up more photos and re-studied the photos I had seen before, but couldn't be sure what I was actually seeing. Tonight I re-candled just two and though there was a thick sort of divide between the dark part with veins and an empty clear part at the bottom, there was definitely lots of movement. Now I know I was just mistaking the contrast between the part with the developing chick and the rest of the egg, for a blood ring. It's tough for us newbies to know what we're seeing. Here are some photos - hope they help.
The sort of cloudy webbing of veins where the growing chick ends and the empty part at the bottom of the egg begins had me worried. Other candling photos show a nice centered dot right in the middle of a vein webbing, but all my eggs look like this - clear on the bottom. I was thinking - blood ring? Detached air sack? But as I watched the chick inside started moving all around, so I knew that, at least for now it was growing and okay. Whew! I'll try to attach my somewhat fuzzy video of this dancing chick soon.

 

[Peep_Show]

If it's webby, it's good...and that's a webby egg. I'm not seeing a blood ring in that picture. I'm seeing the bright spot in the pic as being the air cell, the mid-tone band as being egg white and the dark area as being the yolk. Nope. You're good!

With a blood ring you will not see movement in the egg. The blood ring is the result of all the circulating blood ceasing to flow and pooling. It is a very definite ring around the egg and there will be no webbing.

Good luck!

 

[Demidog]

I second Peep_Show. The empty space at the bottom is the air cell. When there is a blood ring the veining fades and the blood pools in a ring round the middle, which is a thicker line than the veining. If you see movement it's alive! This egg looks good to me. Good luck with your hatch!

 

[RubyNala97]

The fat end will have the air cell. It's best to candle down into the fat end. You can see the most when you look right under the air cell. That where the veins will be and the embryo under that. In the pointy end the albumen (the egg white) will be there and look yellow when the light is there. Don't worry about that. The chick will fill up that space as it grows. Here is a candling pic of how/where I hold my flashlight. It's also good to measure your air cells so you know if you need to increase/decrease humidity.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

The fat end will have the air cell. It's best to candle down into the fat end. You can see the most when you look right under the air cell. That where the veins will be and the embryo under that. In the pointy end the albumen (the egg white) will be there and look yellow when the light is there. Don't worry about that. The chick will fill up that space as it grows. Here is a candling pic of how/where I hold my flashlight. It's also good to measure your air cells so you know if you need to increase/decrease humidity.

xs2 Always candle from the big end down. People get really confused by candling in the middle or from the pointy end. The "clear" at the bottom is actually the albumen and when you shine the light from the middle/bottom, you are illuminating the albumen and it's showing the contrast between the white and the yolk. By candling in from the top as Ruby is doing, you illuminate the air cell and contents down and it puts everything into a better perspective.
For a great thread on what you should see when, check this out: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...g-candling-pics-progression-though-incubation

 

[Demidog]

Yes, the air cell is at the fat end! I thought that's what we were looking at but now i see it again i can tell it's upside down, oops!

 

[alaskanest]

Thanks so much, this really helped with my confusion about what I was seeing when candling. Holding the egg big end up and shining the light down through the air cell is definitely the way to go. I just removed the auto turner and locked my incubator down for the 3 day period before hatch day. I candled them just prior to this and there was alot of movement and what looks like healthy webbing and chick growth in there. We'll see how we do this time around. In the meantime the broody hen given us by a neighbor has hatched out 3 nice healthy chicks who are about 6 days old today. I had added some of our chickens eggs under her when she arrived, too. The chicks who hatched were from eggs that came with her, and one of ours hatched, but was not developed right and died soon after hatching. So sad about that, not sure what the problem was with our eggs, but we'll see what the ones in the incubator do. I'm also incubating a neighbor's eggs, so there may be different hatch times for different breeds. The air cell sizes seem to vary with breed. It's certainly a learning experience!