How do you candle your eggs?
Candling is important as it allows you to observe the development of the embryo inside an egg. Candling at regular intervals can help you understand the growth and development of the egg, and separate any infertile eggs from those that are fertile. Brinsea’s OvaView and OvaScope make a great combination for candling. The award winning OvaScope cuts out all the ambient light and slightly magnifies the egg which makes the illuminated egg much easier to see. The egg can be rotated from outside the OvaScope to allow the egg to be viewed from a range of angles and you can fix a small camera or web cam to generate a digital image of the egg and embryo.
Cristina contacted us to tell us all about her experience of candling and hatching using Brinsea products.
Cristina used the OvaView and OvaScope to candle her eggs.
‘We’ve always wanted to keep chickens, but I never thought I would enjoy the hatching process as much as I do! This was my second hatch using a Brinsea incubator; the first time I used an Eco version where I was responsible for adjusting the temperature when needed, but I found this quite stressful, so decided this time to upgrade to one which took care of that for me!
I am now the proud owner of a Brinsea Mini Advance incubator, which holds 7 chicken eggs. It’s the perfect little incubator for a stress-free hatch, it counts down the days to hatch day, rotates automatically and keeps the temperature stable, even throughout cold evenings. We unfortunately had a power-cut on day 7 during a very cold night. By the time I woke up the incubator had been off for at least 2 hours and the outside was cold to the touch. I kept my fingers crossed the power would return soon and that the eggs hadn’t got too cold! I was convinced the incubation was a right off but thankfully it didn’t seem to affect the eggs at all. When the power finally returned, the incubator had remembered my settings and heated back to the set temperature automatically and quickly– very clever!
Alongside the incubator, I purchased the Brinsea OvaView and OvaScope kit and in my opinion this is a must have! I didn’t realise just how much I was missing out on before I had this set up – the details the kit allows you to see are truly incredible. The OvaView was great on its own for showing the air sac which gave reassurance that the humidity level was correct and the OvaScope allowed me to see the extra details of the chicks moving, as well as so much more!
We currently have 8 happy hens and 5 chicks chirping away in the brooder, but I’m sure this number is soon to grow! Our chickens are a huge part of our lives and bring us so much joy each day – they’ve even made their way into my pebble art business where I craft bespoke chicken pictures! If you’d like to checkout my Etsy shop, you can click here to see my latest chicken pebble art frame, inspired by my hatching experience.
Thank you Brinsea, for creating such reliable products and making hatching such a delightful experience!’
Cristina – Cristinas Quirky Crafts
