Help checking Ringneck Pheasant fertility.

[AG]

Hi, I got into incubating about two years ago and after having success with chicken and quail I decided to do pheasant this year. There's one problem though, the shell is so thick that my candler can't illuminate what's inside. I'm looking for other methods of checking for fertility. I recently heard of a thing called "floating" where one floats eggs in warm water to see if they move. Can someone offer more tips on that? When can one start floating them and what's the proper way of doing it?

Thank-you!
-AG

 

[wilds of pa]

Break a couple eggs open and look at the blastoderm..

look for a
bullseye=fertile
or
white dot=not fertile

This site may help, but theres probably better ones out there..
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8134.pdf

 

[Albanydog]

You could weigh the eggs and see if they are loosing weight as their incubation progresses? I should have thought of that before I put mine in the bator 12 days ago!
I hope you find out how to check for fertility before you have to break any open because I have the same question and would hate to lose any. I have a one year old pair of Ringnecks and my hen is laying but she lays eggs all over the pen. Months ago I made her natural nesting areas of brush and branches and 2 different laying boxes, one also covered in brush. I know her mate is ready and willing but have never seen them breed and have read they can lay 30 to 90 eggs in a season but only set on 8 to 15 at a time or you will get up to 15 fertilized eggs from them??? Do they hatch out more then 1 clutch a season? Are the majority of the eggs just decoys and not fertile? Would have been nice if they had answered those questions in the articles I found.

 

[JJMR794]

umm sorry but that wont work--- You see even infertile eggs loose weight as they dehydrate while in the incubator...