Candling Eggs
Our incubating eggs have been going for 17 days now. It takes 26 days for them to hatch, but after 7 days you can tell if anything is happening in the eggs by using an old technique called "candling " (if you follow that link, remember that we have guinea eggs, not chicken eggs, so things are slightly different). Well, we were too busy at 7 days to take a close look at the eggs, but this past Saturday Roy felt inspired . . .
With a bright flashlight and the curtains drawn, he started going through the eggs . . .
This is an egg in which nothing is growing:
The light shines through the egg equally in all areas if it's a dud.
This is an egg with a chick in it:
You can't see through most of the egg because the chick inside is casting a shadow. Roy said that every once in a while he would see the shadow twitch - very cool!
Of our 42 eggs in the incubator, Roy found that 17 definitely had a chick it them, 12 were questionable, and the rest were duds. Hm, not quite the numbers I wanted to hear, but I suppose it's pretty good for our first time.
Outside, the more natural hatching process is not going well. Just over a week ago, two things happened almost the same day: a guinea started sitting on the clutch of eggs in the chicken house and another guinea went missing. We were so excited that a hen had gone broody and maybe we'd get some keets out of those eggs . . . but after a week of checking on her, she doesn't seem to be very consistent. In fact, I'd be surprised if she sits on them 2/3 of the day. I haven't researched it, but my gut feeling is that she isn't sitting on them enough to successfully hatch them. Sigh.
Oh yeah, sometimes a chicken helps the guinea out for a while by sitting on the eggs. Maybe between the two of them there's hope?
We guessed that the missing guinea was sitting on her own nest. We just didn't know where that nest was . . . Roy, Melise, and I bundled ourselves up the first night she was missing and searched all the likely spots, plus many others. We finally gave up when we realized just how many hiding places there are around our place! I'm afraid to say that this story doesn't have a happy ending. A few days ago, Roy found the mystery nest with some guinea feathers, unhealthily removed. Our best guess is that a coyote found her sitting faithfully on her nest and she was just such an easy target. Another sigh.
Enough sighs! I promise next post to deliver some happy news!
With a bright flashlight and the curtains drawn, he started going through the eggs . . .
This is an egg in which nothing is growing:
The light shines through the egg equally in all areas if it's a dud.
This is an egg with a chick in it:
You can't see through most of the egg because the chick inside is casting a shadow. Roy said that every once in a while he would see the shadow twitch - very cool!
Of our 42 eggs in the incubator, Roy found that 17 definitely had a chick it them, 12 were questionable, and the rest were duds. Hm, not quite the numbers I wanted to hear, but I suppose it's pretty good for our first time.
Outside, the more natural hatching process is not going well. Just over a week ago, two things happened almost the same day: a guinea started sitting on the clutch of eggs in the chicken house and another guinea went missing. We were so excited that a hen had gone broody and maybe we'd get some keets out of those eggs . . . but after a week of checking on her, she doesn't seem to be very consistent. In fact, I'd be surprised if she sits on them 2/3 of the day. I haven't researched it, but my gut feeling is that she isn't sitting on them enough to successfully hatch them. Sigh.
Oh yeah, sometimes a chicken helps the guinea out for a while by sitting on the eggs. Maybe between the two of them there's hope?
We guessed that the missing guinea was sitting on her own nest. We just didn't know where that nest was . . . Roy, Melise, and I bundled ourselves up the first night she was missing and searched all the likely spots, plus many others. We finally gave up when we realized just how many hiding places there are around our place! I'm afraid to say that this story doesn't have a happy ending. A few days ago, Roy found the mystery nest with some guinea feathers, unhealthily removed. Our best guess is that a coyote found her sitting faithfully on her nest and she was just such an easy target. Another sigh.
Enough sighs! I promise next post to deliver some happy news!
Posted by Susan at May 17, 2010 
Categories: Rural Living, Poultry
Tags: brooding keet hatch nest broody hatching egg incubator chicken guinea clutch
Categories: Rural Living, Poultry
Tags: brooding keet hatch nest broody hatching egg incubator chicken guinea clutch
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