Patent ID: 8724098

Claim:
A method for candling eggs to determine at least a state of at least a fertilized egg containing an embryo, comprising: illumination of said egg with light limited to one or several wavelengths not less than 440 nm and not greater than 570 nm and acquisition of at least one image of said illuminated egg; analysis of said image in order to determine a vitality level of the embryo of said egg based on the presence or not of a blood network supplying the embryo of said egg in said image and, in the case of the presence of a blood network, on the size of the veins of said blood network; analysis of said image to quantify a thickness, a length or both the thickness and the length of dark lines representing a shadow of the blood network on a shell of said egg; and comparison of the thickness, the length or both the thickness and the length to reference values that depend on an age of said egg.