Egg Incubation Questions

[ajcrestedgeckos]

Does anyone have some pics of eggs being candled during different lengths of incubation?  If so, please share.  I decided to try candling for the first time and I'm not sure whether a couple of my eggs are fertile or not.  I have eggs from a first year breeder at 80 and 50 days and they all look empty.  Could these eggs last 80 days and still look fine(still white, no dents, and they have enlarged while incubating) and not be fertile?  I ask because every egg that I have had has turned bad within 30 days or hatched.
I also candled 40 day old eggs from a second year breeder and there was definitely something in them.  I incubate in sealed deli cups half-full of hatchrite with temps of 70-74 degrees.  The cups are opened once a week for airflow and the eggs are buried until about 50 days and then they are 1/2 showing.

[Terradas]

I have never quite gotten the hang of candeling so I finally gave up. To be honest, I find it a little unnecessary unless you have a lot riding on your eggs being fertile.

If you incubate them normally/correctly, infertile eggs will show their signs (molding, leaking, caving in, etc) soon enough.

What makes you think they might not be fertile? Cresties are the rabbits of the gecko world!!

[honuman]

Does anyone have some pics of eggs being candled during different lengths of incubation?  If so, please share.  I decided to try candling for the first time and I'm not sure whether a couple of my eggs are fertile or not.  I have eggs from a first year breeder at 80 and 50 days and they all look empty.  Could these eggs last 80 days and still look fine(still white, no dents, and they have enlarged while incubating) and not be fertile? 

They could be fertile. leave em till they collapse.  I have candled eggs that were seemingly empty and they hatched. 

[smith710]

I know how to candle them, but I have no pics.  All I can suggest is to keep them incubating until something happends to them.  NEVER throw eggs away unless they have molded over, dried out, dented way in, or you just know for sure they are no good.

[ajcrestedgeckos]

I'm not freaking out or gonna throw them out or anything.  I was just wondering about it.  Kinda just curious whether you can tell if an egg is good or not by candling.  Either way I think lighting up the inside of an egg looks pretty cool.

[jhawkk2004]

If you're using perlite as an incubating medium, you can usually just press the end of the flashlight against the perlite next to the egg and it works just fine, I like when I'm candling and you see a tail wagging around inside 

[Tanina]

If they are at 50 and 80 days and haven't grown then they're most likely infertile. Size has always been my indication as my eyesight is too poor to properly candle.

[DarthGekko]

Get a maglite pen light. I got mine from Lowe's or Home Depot. It cost less than $5 and it is made to go on your keychain. Much better than some candling lights I've seen for $20+. I candle all my gecko eggs, from Crested to Leopard gecko. In fact I candle with this mini maglite right after the egg is laid to find the "red circle" and I place the egg in the incubator with the red circle facing up and then I mark each egg with a finepoint perm marker. I have a 99% incubation rate doing it this way. Any eggs that appear yellow or without a circle are marked in my records as "On Watch".... on watch for mold, denting etc. You want to catch a moldy egg as soon as you can because once mold is growing on an infertile egg it can spread to your other fertile eggs. It is also smart to put these "On Watch" eggs in a separate deli cup/tupperware container to further isolate the chance of a mold outbreak. I think candling is not neccessary but, I endorse it as a way to prepare and isolate bad eggs from good. I mean why take a chance when hatching new geckos is sooo exciting!