Egg Candling

Before a few weeks ago, I had never heard that phrase before. So much yet to learn! As I mentioned before, in the olden days, an actual candle was used, but I was afraid I would cook the poor things. So we rigged up a desk lamp, flower pot, and aluminum foil for our make-shift egg candler. It was amazing to watch the growth inside the egg. At week one, we candled them and saw small black dots, which would hopefully be a baby chick. Just last night, we candled them one last time. Looks like we may have 8 or so baby chicks! We actually saw the heartbeat in one egg, saw one baby chick jump, and could see the faint outline of a beak in another. I may be weird, but I find all this truly fascinating. Better than TV!

This is a picture of the inside of the egg. My camera is not the greatest at taking pictures in the dark, so I borrowed one from the web similar to what we were seeing inside the egg. The miracle of life!

Now we are not supposed to touch the eggs from here on out. The chicks are positioning themselves in there for their escape from their shell. To move them would disorient them and possibly interfere with their hatching ability. So we wait. Did you know that the chick's head is always in the larger end of an egg? Did you notice that eggs are always stored (or should be) with the larger end pointing up? You wouldn't want your chicken standing on its head, would you?

I've read that if you are quiet in the days prior to hatching that you may hear peeps coming from the eggs. At this point, a hen would start clucking back to encourage them to break out of their shell. So if you should happen to stop in and hear me clucking, don't mind me. Just talking to my eggs :-)