Re: can you tell by looking or holding a chicken egg if it is fertilized or not

> can you tell by looking or holding a chicken egg if it is fertilized or 
> not

Good question!

You generally can't tell by looking, but you can tell by using a process 
called "candling".  In the candling process a bright light shines up from 
the below the egg.  If the egg contains an fertilized yolk (depending on 
the age of development of the chick) that egg will look either slightly or 
very different from an unfertilized egg.

The candling process is still used today to make sure that when you and I 
buy eggs at the store, we are getting unfertilized eggs and not baby 
chicks.