An egg candling method for determining a state of eggs between the 13th and the 17th day of incubation, particularly for identifying with certainty the living or dead state of that egg. The egg is illuminated with a green or blue light to visually show on the shell a shadow of the blood network supplying the embryo of the egg if it is present in the egg. At least one image of the egg is acquired then processed in order to determine a vitality level of the egg, based on the presence or not of this blood network and the size of the veins of said blood network. The method also determines the presence or absence of air cell in the upper portion of the egg and to thus define the inverted or uninverted position of the egg. Finally, the method also makes it possible to detect lesions on an egg shell and particularly cracked shells.
