The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: northfifeduckling on June 06, 2021, 01:09:51 pm
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I’m looking for recommendations of affordable portable egg candlers and where to get them. Ebay and a-z all sell the same chinese :poo: , basically a £shop one-use torch with a huge markup for the egg cup attachment. :-\ I chucked one I had when it broke before noting what brand years ago :'( :'(
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Our original is a Brinsea with a lightbulb. I am concerned about the current ones that use an LED. The first things that develop are the eyes as they are very complex and will anything too powerful damage them? You would never know because chickens are adaptable, although I have seen recently reports of chickens hatched being blind and this may be the reason?
You may be better going back to the original candle in a dark room?
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That never occurred to me, thanks for your input!
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When I was growing up we had two very large incubators for turkeys (together they filled a room). The candling table was a cut-out slit in the surface with a row of normal lightbulbs (1950s version) underneath. The eggs were in partitioned trays in the incubator, long rows, so candling was easy: you took a tray out of the incubator (well I was only in single age figures so someone did that bit for me) then perched each row of eggs over the lit slit and candled them, moving the tray forward as you went. It was perfectly adequate, with a business depending on it. My dad made it and he was not exactly the handiest man around.
I am thinking you could modify that, depending on how many eggs you want to candle, even having one for a single egg at a time. You would need a wooden box with a hole on top and a bulb inside, plus a darkened room.
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I've never owned an egg candler. I simply just use the flashlight feature on my phone and it seems to work well, even on the darker brown and green shells. When I candle them on days 3-6 if I cannot see anything developing in some eggs instead of being quick to throw them out because they are bad eggs, I have just left them and re candled after a few days where I can then see some development.
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The first candling should take place a third of the way through incubation - then you will be able to clearly see what is happening inside. So for chickens candle on day 7, for ducks and turkeys candle on day 9, geese day 10 etc etc.
My candler is a simple hand held one - like a torch with a rubber thing on the end to direct the beam - made by Titan. I have found it perfectly good enough for most eggs except very dark Marans or Welsummer eggs.
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I just use a normal torch - if the egg is smaller than the torch I cover it around with my hand :innocent:
It works perfectly fine. That's all you need really