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

[hiddenflock]

We just ordered 24 eggs from my pet chicken... It is the "our best standards assortment"... Will those likely come from Gabbard?

 

[chickengirl2014]

I got silkies do those come from Arkansas?

 

[optycal]

I am currently listening to 3 of my 7 Gabbard Farms Blue Ameraucanas chirp inside their pipped eggs! This is one day early, so I'm holding out hope the other 4 will pip soon. This will be my second try with Gabbard Farms (shipped all the way to Washington state.) Last year, most were scrambled--one was early death (day 5?) and one made it to day 14ish before I didn't see any progress. None of them hatched.

THIS year, 3 pipped so far and I am very hopeful for my blue babies (finally!)

 

[blackgoat]

Hey all,

I thought I'd share my hatching egg experience from Gabbard and My Pet Chicken. This is a long post, so feel free to skip to the end where I have my (first hatch) hatch rate from different sellers. I think the MPC eggs can come from Gabbard Farms, but I don't think all of them do. I think, now this is only speculation, and I have no proof, but I think MPC gets the extras from Gabbard, because MPC costs a bit more. Gabbard has a slightly different selection. I ordered the 12 egg blue breed assortment from MPC, and 3 Spizhauben from Gabbard.

The 12 eggs arrived on the week date they were scheduled to, but on Saturday. There were extras, and a couple had broken, it looked like they slipped out of bubble wrap. The box had been flipped over because the broken eggs were in the bottom, and there was egg goo everywhere. (Not MPC fault, but someone needs to talk to the postal people, the box was labeled on every side, but, that's another rant...)

The air cells were HUGE! Like, really big, like last-week-of-incubation-sized. All but one had become detached. I let them sit for a day. The air cells didn't reattach. Can the air cells re-attach? I didn't have any that did (I say this having only attempting incubation once, but I did have four sets of eggs from different places). I let them sit until the Spitz eggs came. I ordered them like a day apart, but they came three days apart. The Spitz eggs also had big air cells. These had to be like at least 2 weeks old. That, or they were stored in a very dry place.

Anyway, first candling: five clear...sadness! Second candling, a couple of quitters...more sadness. Needless to say, one of the 12 hatched, a Blue Laced Barnevelder...yay! None of the Spitz hatched...and I did something I wished I hadn't, I did an eggtopsy on one, and there was a perfect little chick inside that had pipped the wrong side and drowned...so much sadness! Her air cell was almost the half the size of the egg by hatching time, so she probably couldn't turn around properly. I had kept the incubator kind of high on the humidity range (around 65%) because of the big air cells. So, I don't know what I could have done different. Maybe even higher humidity?

On the happier side, out of a set of 6 eggs I ordered off of ebay, 4 hatched, so my incubation methods can't be that terrible. I'm going to give Gabbard another try, their blue assortment is cheaper than MPC, and their eggs did develop, and out of 3, it's hard to give an accurate assessment. I will say that my ebay eggs were a bit better, so I might stick with that route.

below is my hatch rate from each set:
1 of 12 MPC
2 of 9 Ebay
4 of 6 Ebay
0 of 3 Gabbard


Sorry about the long post.

 

[optycal]

I'm sorry to hear your little baby didn't make it. So difficult to see them work that hard to hatch, only to expire before they can get free =(

 

[jtn42248]

Good information, thanks. I just ordered my first incubator and have been doing some looking around at hatching egg providers. I boggles the mind to think of something as delicate as an egg being shipped by postal service and managing to survive.

 

[blackgoat]

I think I did the best I could, and can learn from the experience, but it's so heartbreaking when they get so close, and then don't make it. I did do an assisted hatch for another chick that also pipped the wrong side, and had managed to break all the way through, so didn't inhale any liquid, but couldn't zip. I don't know if I had to do the assist, but I waited for 12 hours, like I read you're supposed to, then helped. The chick is doing just fine, although appears more than 12 hours behind the others in development.

 

[optycal]

Update on my Gabbard Farms babies.

4 out of 7 hatched, one dead in the shell, though one passed away right after hatching. She was extremely tired--her hatch took a very long time. One of the 4 that hatched (we call him "2 of 7" (or #2), a Star Trek reference, lol) pipped the wrong end, and I ended up helping him hatch with a pair of tweezers, sterilized water, a heat lamp, and a LOT of patience.

The three that lived past hatching were growing well and looked beautiful (using the breed standard on the Ameraucana breeders club site.) We were raising them right along side the Ameraucana babies we got from Pips&Peeps. Unfortunately, we had raccoons one week--I killed a family of them living about 30 feet from our coop. The next week we had coyotes. By the time I scared off all the yotes, a **** cougar was prowling the property, too. All in all, most of the babies I got from Pips&Peeps ended up as dinner for something, and only one of my Gabbard Farms babies survived the assault--it just happened to be #2, and he is super friendly.

As a side note, the 3 Ameraucanas from Pips&Peeps are absolutely stunning birds! I can definitely see the time and care she puts into her flock. We ended up with one wheaton rooster (who is named Will Wheaton, yes, also from Star Trek, lol) and he's just the prettiest bird I've ever seen. He's also very tolerant of #2, even though he's roo, too.

We will be buying from Gabbard again this year, but I think I'll get most of my birds from Pips&Peeps if she is selling again =)

 

[Sunshine0235]

I just saw this and wanted to add my experience with Gabbard. I bought an assortment of 24 hatching eggs from them. They came in a large box and were packed tightly. Two of the eggs were weeping yellow nastiness. So I set those aside, and put the eggs in the next day, within a couple of days another egg started weeping. I removed that and waited. On day 7 I candled, and no development in the eggs. I contacted them about the age of the eggs, since I have never seen a weeping egg before, and none started developing. (Been hatching eggs for 4 years now) This was in about late August. They said it might have been the heat that caused the eggs to weep. They offered to send another set of eggs, for the cost of shipping. I then asked to include a cold pack in the shipping costs, which they agreed to do. They shipped the new eggs soon after that. When it arrived, there was NOT a cold pack in with the eggs like I paid for, but I didnt mind much since they offered new eggs, when they said they didnt cover that, and it was out of their hands after shipping. So I was ok with that. I set the eggs the next day. Ended up with 3 NHR chicks from a set of 24 eggs. (Those 3 were the only ones to develop),


Not sure if this was my fault or how the eggs arrived, it was dark inside form the start but: One egg that I wasnt sure was fertile or not got left in with the three that were developing, it was a maran egg, It wasnt that dark shelled, but looked like it could possibly be developing since it had a lot of bacteria growing inside it. When I went to open it to see what happened, it literally exploded with natsy black goo, and had a terrible stench. Again I dont know if it arrived that way or if it was from incubation, but I have never had a bad egg like that ever, I have only gotten bad eggs from Gabbard.
So thats my experience with them, and I have to say I will never order from them again.

 

[MrsBachbach]

I just saw this and wanted to add my experience with Gabbard. I bought an assortment of 24 hatching eggs from them. They came in a large box and were packed tightly. Two of the eggs were weeping yellow nastiness. So I set those aside, and put the eggs in the next day, within a couple of days another egg started weeping. I removed that and waited. On day 7 I candled, and no development in the eggs. I contacted them about the age of the eggs, since I have never seen a weeping egg before, and none started developing. (Been hatching eggs for 4 years now) This was in about late August. They said it might have been the heat that caused the eggs to weep. They offered to send another set of eggs, for the cost of shipping. I then asked to include a cold pack in the shipping costs, which they agreed to do. They shipped the new eggs soon after that. When it arrived, there was NOT a cold pack in with the eggs like I paid for, but I didnt mind much since they offered new eggs, when they said they didnt cover that, and it was out of their hands after shipping. So I was ok with that. I set the eggs the next day. Ended up with 3 NHR chicks from a set of 24 eggs. (Those 3 were the only ones to develop)


Not sure if this was my fault or how the eggs arrived, it was dark inside form the start but: One egg that I wasnt sure was fertile or not got left in with the three that were developing, it was a maran egg, It wasnt that dark shelled, but looked like it could possibly be developing since it had a lot of bacteria growing inside it. When I went to open it to see what happened, it literally exploded with natsy black goo, and had a terrible stench. Again I dont know if it arrived that way or if it was from incubation, but I have never had a bad egg like that ever, I have only gotten bad eggs from Gabbard.
So thats my experience with them, and I have to say I will never order from them again.

I once had a similar experience with bad eggs. Not shipped eggs, but eggs I picked up from a breeder years ago. I know it had been rainy and he had his eggs sitting out on the counter when I arrived. His pens must have been muddy because some of the eggs given me looked like they were stained from mud. I didn't know much about hatching eggs or storing or anything like that back then. I had only a couple of hours drive home, but I put the egg cartons in a cooler for the drive home along with a small ice pack. When I arrived home I unpacked them and they were cold. I likely put them in the incubator a few hours later. Some of them were sweating.
That was the stinkiest bunch of eggs I have ever incubated. I had alot of nasty rotten eggs in that bunch. I think I may have had four hatch from that dozen. All the rest were rotten. Now, I don't know if it was the fact that the eggs were collected from the mud at the breeders place and he washed them off, or if it was the fact that I may have got the eggs too cold on my short ride back home and then put them in the incubator, but I have to say, that was a terrible experience. Bacteria definitely entered into those eggs.