Testing eggs

Hills · **Joined:** Thu Jul 14, 2011 9:11 am **Posts:** 2

Is there anyway of testing eggs for fertility before I put them in the incubator so as not to waist power?

purefeather · **Joined:** Wed Sep 29, 2010 6:36 pm **Posts:** 736

G'day Hills, from my limited knowledge, I don't think you'll know until about 5 or so days into incubation. Which is around about first candling.You can however check for freshness of your eggs by looking at the size of the air sack (for want of a better word). If the eggs are fresh the egg sack should be about the size of small fingernail.The older the egg the larger the air sack. If you don't have candler yet you could float them in "warm" water, the fresh ones will lie flat on the bottom, the older ones will tilt up ,stand upright or float depending on how old they are.

OakA · **Posted:** Thu Jul 14, 2011 5:35 pm

It might be worthwhile if you have concerns about fertility to sacrifice one egg to find out.
Crack an earlier laid or older egg into a saucer and see for yourself, if one of the earlier eggs is fertile and a rooster has been running with the females you could assume the rest will be, if infertile try a second laid later to see if fertility has become established.
To test if an egg is fertile , as I said crack into a saucer, on one side of the egg will be a thread where the yolk sac attaches to the white/albumen, on the other will be a clouded dot, this is the fertility spot, only present when there is a sperm deposit and the egg is fertile.If unsure examine a bought egg as they will not be fertile and see for yourself the small but obvious difference.
Then as Purefeather suggests in about 5 to 10 days you can see the developing chich with a candler or strong torch.

Hills · **Joined:** Thu Jul 14, 2011 9:11 am **Posts:** 2

Thanks allot I will try that great!

LOOLOO · **Posted:** Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:25 am

Oaklands wrote:

It might be worthwhile if you have concerns about fertility to sacrifice one egg to find out.
Crack an earlier laid or older egg into a saucer and see for yourself, if one of the earlier eggs is fertile and a rooster has been running with the females you could assume the rest will be, if infertile try a second laid later to see if fertility has become established.
To test if an egg is fertile , as I said crack into a saucer, on one side of the egg will be a thread where the yolk sac attaches to the white/albumen, on the other will be a clouded dot, this is the fertility spot, only present when there is a sperm deposit and the egg is fertile.If unsure examine a bought egg as they will not be fertile and see for yourself the small but obvious difference.
Then as Purefeather suggests in about 5 to 10 days you can see the developing chich with a candler or strong torch.

You are clever

LooLoo

SkyHigh · **Joined:** Wed Mar 02, 2011 10:50 am **Posts:** 4

That is a great idea I will also try that

LOOLOO · **Posted:** Sun Jul 17, 2011 8:16 am

Me too

LooLoo

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