Common hatching issues for shipped eggs?

[Newchickgrandma]

Today was day 15 of incubating bantam buttercup eggs from three states away. Air cells look very normal. 4 were very damaged and got thrown out. One was a quitter at 7 days, but the other 20 eggs have live embryos in them! Since there are only 6 days until day 21 and I've never done this before, what are common hatching problems for shipped eggs that have made it most of the way to the end? Any special challenges for shipped eggs I should watch for?

 

[Newchickgrandma]

Bump

 

[Newchickgrandma]

Bump

 

[Ridgerunner]

You seem to have avoided the worst of the potential problems with shipped eggs. You don't know how or how long shipped eggs were stored before shipping. The embryos could die and not develop just from being old or stored in hot or cold conditions. You've avoided that. If stored a while in dry conditions they could lose an excess of moisture. That means your chance of shrink-wrap at hatch goes up or they could have other issues hatching. I'd make sure the humidity was raised for lockdown. I'm not sure what else you can do for that.

The eggs may be shaken pretty hard while in shipping. That is probably the biggest cause of problems with shipped eggs. That does not always happen but it sure can. Your air cells look good so that is probably not a big concern. It could mean they don't position themselves correctly for hatch or they pip in the wrong place. I feel pretty good with your chances with that with the air cells looking good.

You often read to expect a 50% hatch rate for shipped eggs. On average that has been close to my experience. But one time I had a 20% hatch rate and another time a 100% hatch rate with eggs from the same shipper. That averages out to close to 50% but each individual hatch can be way different.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.