My Pet Chicken / Gabbard Farms Hatching Eggs BEWARE!!!

I wish I did more research before buying hatching eggs from MPC, because I was not aware they came from Gabbard Farms. MPC has great reviews on live birds, because they don't come from Gabbard Farms, so don't hesitate to order those. I had an experience very similar to many angry backyarders. One person put it very simply, "Too many getting burned." Well, I got burned:

I orderred 24 assorted Orpington Hatching Eggs waiting almost 3 weeks past my ship date, the box smelled rotton, the eggs were ginormous, with rather large air cells (not fresh), the condition of the shells were poor, and the 4 Lavenders looked like they had already been incubating for a few days. But that's minor compared to what came next. I received 11 Blue, 7 Buff, 4 Lavender, and 2 Splash. It only took 1 day for them to arrive at my house from the time they shipped, so they weren't in transit long. I started incubating all of them regardless of how bad they looked. Well today is day 5, and only the Buffs are proceeding normally. That's when I decided to open up the shells and check. ALL 13 of the BLUE/SPLASH were not even fertile. I'm not talking about clear, I mean TRULY INFERTILE! The blastodiscs never had a run in with a Rooster. I could have saved myself a lot of money and just bought Buff Orpingtons, but then again the reason I bought this assortment was for the hopes of getting Black, Splash, and Blue.

I read these same exact complaints from others after I already had my eggs -same stuff in the old comments on Gabbard Farm's facebook page. When we buy shipping eggs we do gamble with the Post Office, but NOT with fertility. I'm not sure what is going on with Gabbard Farms or why MPC still deals with them. I have spent time defending other hatcheries on here, because I know chickens die, the Post Office can shake packages, etc. But when a hatchery has such a reputation for 0% hatch rates (but only on the rare breeds) something incompetent or dishonest is going on. Has anyone ever hatched a rare breed from Gabbard Farms? I could easily label an infertile egg with anything I wanted, cause it'll never hatch, so the customer would never know if it really was that rare Maran or more expensive Orpington. And then I could blame it on shipping, cause honestly, how many people know how to check for fertility, and if they do, do they have a good enough camera to take a detailed picture of the blastodisc to prove it? I read from someone how their rare egg actually did hatch as something else. Something just seems deceptive. I don't care how nice the owner appears to be, if they stink at the hatching egg business please don't buy from them -Capitalism at its best. Gabbard Farms has a lot of backyarders hard earned money in their pockets, and lets face it -they can easily get away with sending faulty eggs while blaming it on shipping.

Really bad experience Have you informed them of your findings?

I emailed them 6 days ago when I first got the eggs, then again today. No response back. My husband is eager to call them. They must be backed up with complaints.

stefan333 said:

I emailed them 6 days ago when I first got the eggs, then again today. No response back. My husband is eager to call them. They must be backed up with complaints.

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I'd be angry too!

Oh, I am. I don't care about the $83 or lost eggs too much. It's the principle behind the whole thing.

I have read that once you start incubating them you can no longer tell if they were fertile or not.

Guess I'll be finding out how they are as well. I placed an order with MPC for eggs. So sorry to here this ; (

Hatching Eggs - Bantam Mille Fleur D'Uccle
--> 3 Eggs

Hatching Eggs - Bantam Porcelain D'Uccle
--> 3 Eggs

Hatching Eggs - Wheaten Ameraucana
--> 3 Eggs

Commercial hatcheries do research on these things, and I find them to have the most accurate information, because you hear a lot of things on the forums that aren't correct. I've read on these forums many times that you can't tell once they start incubating, but that's not true. I did have one Buff that wasn't progressing, and when I analyzed it, it did have the white ring around it showing fertility -Very noticeably different than the true infertiles. When you do a breakout analysis of eggs that candle clear it's amazing what you can learn from them. When candling they all look the same, but when opening them up there are very noticable differences.

"Consider candling followed by egg analysis between day 7 - 10, as a more reliable means of measuring true fertility."
"By candling at days 7 - 10, it is possible to reliably discriminate between true infertility and early embryonic death for two reasons. Firstly, because embryonic membranes formed during the first days of incubation can still be recognized. Secondly, in clear eggs collected between days 7 - 10, a change in the color of yolk as a result of embryonic activity is clearly visible. The active young embryo transports water from albumen to yolk, which results in a whitish or light yellow ring around the embryo."

http://www.pasreform.com/academy/fr...blishing-true-fertility-in-hatching-eggs.html

I hope you happen to have a good hatch.

Some good news. I just found out that MPC uses other breeders/hatcheries for their eggs besides Gabbard Farms, so those of you who do have eggs all is not lost. I would only worry if they were shipped from Arkansas. And even then, I think it might depend on breed. I try to be optimistic.