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.
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.
