Relative Something

It’s another first for us. Last night, on day-7, we “candled” our incubating chicken eggs. Honestly, I had no idea what we were going to see. I’ve left the research up to Cyndie. I was under the impression we would see blood vessels growing. That’s about the extent of my expectations.

The first thing I noticed was that it is hard to see through the dark shells. We almost always were able to detect some definition of a darker area and a noticeably lighter air cell, but rarely perceived actual veins. That can’t be taken to mean there weren’t any there, just that we couldn’t see them.

I didn’t know how much any of this really mattered until learning that an incubated egg that isn’t growing a chick will instead grow bacteria and eventually burst or even explode into a stinky mess.

We suddenly have a new incentive to learn how to correctly interpret what the bright light reveals inside the shell.

I took this picture of one of two odd ones that appear to be more porous than all the others. At least this made it easier to see inside. The darker portion on that egg is much, much smaller than all the others, whatever that might indicate.

Cyndie marked all the eggs with a checkmark or a question mark so we can compare progress the next time we try out our candling skills. Next week.

Hopefully, well before any bad ones threaten to erupt. I really don’t want to learn about that experience first hand.

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