Plymouth Rock thread!

[Fred's Hens]

Shipping eggs, big end up, in rolled up bubble wrap tubes, all spaces filled with peanuts just about assures no broken eggs. We shipped and I have received countless boxes of eggs using this method with never a broken egg. Broken eggs isn't the issue and beyond the unnecessary expense of the foam package, it won't likely solve the real enemy of shipped eggs and that is the Post Office.

There is nothing one can do once you drop them off at the PO. They are tumbled on conveyor belts, likely dropped into bins, jostled about in hand carts, trucks, altitude and pressure changes in planes, plunged into freezing temperatures, left in boiling hot summer trucks, and so on ad nauseum. Sometimes it is detached air cells and similar damage but other times the insides are shear scrambled eggs as if someone shook the egg with all their might.

It is an acknowledged crap shoot that good packaging alone cannot solve.

 

[speckledhen]

Quote:

Ain't that the truth! However, I've had some arrive with detached air cells that stabilized and did hatch, to my surprise, so don't always count them out.

 

[Fred's Hens]

You get that box every once in awhile that for some unknown reason known only to the gods of fate, that the hatch rate is outstanding.
Then...... you get the other kind.

 

[MalMom]

LOL....practice golf ball 'artifact' compliments of my 5 year old and his Dad...yup, they hit balls and a few end up over in the birds' area. LOL.

When we were kids we had a pet chicken. She would watch the dog play fetch and run after the ball with him. So I got her a bouncy ball and she would chase, and retrieve, the bouncy ball, while the dog retrieved the tennis ball. Yup, that's right, my chicken played fetch.

So I totally think you could teach yours to play soccer!

 

[cybercat]

Shipping eggs, big end up, in rolled up bubble wrap tubes, all spaces filled with peanuts just about assures no broken eggs. We shipped and I have received countless boxes of eggs using this method with never a broken egg. Broken eggs isn't the issue and beyond the unnecessary expense of the foam package, it won't likely solve the real enemy of shipped eggs and that is the Post Office.

There is nothing one can do once you drop them off at the PO. They are tumbled on conveyor belts, likely dropped into bins, jostled about in hand carts, trucks, altitude and pressure changes in planes, plunged into freezing temperatures, left in boiling hot summer trucks, and so on ad nauseum. Sometimes it is detached air cells and similar damage but other times the insides are shear scrambled eggs as if someone shook the egg with all their might.

It is an acknowledged crap shoot that good packaging alone cannot solve.

Oh and posting fragile Sometimes make it worse. Heat alone this summer was bad enough that most people shipping any animals were thinking twice. I now those trucks get well over 100 in temps more in the 130+. That can not be good for eggs either and if you a far from the terminal they are in that all DAY.

I would rather take my chance with day old chicks than buying eggs to hatch.

 

[Silver Rock]

As for the hatching eggs I am just hoping for the best. Here is a link to a video of my Silver Penciled Plymouth Rocks at 4 1/2 months old. Notice at the start of the of the video the cockerel at his natural stance. In my opinion he has the correct type for his age and I also feel at 4 1/2 months old he has more filling out to do. Pictures can be misleading so I hope this video helps.
http://s1346.photobucket.com/user/silverrock1974/media/VID_20130831_192020_zpscea285d2.mp4.html

 

[catdaddyfro]

The worst thing wrong with that shipping method there is the purchase of that box. That priority box is not the best way to ship those eggs it goes right in the same general delivery mail. The foam packaging looks safe enough, its the treatment the box gets. Look into using the live shipping boxes(Tom Roebuck sent cbnovicks Buff rock eggs from Va. to Az. in one early summer time and she had a great hatch rate from those RARE eggs) and too they will put those in the live section of the transporter could you imagine on a hot summer day how hot that box could get in an enclosure where there is not controlled climate (letters and regular boxes probly don't get too much A/C reckon). And I'd say the live shipping boxes have a greater chance of more gentle handling, there are a few humane folks in the world(company men/women) LOL

Jeff

 

[speckledhen]

Well, you have to use the postal system if you want more than the hatchery birds at the local feed stores. If you're the breeder/seller, you just pack them the very best you can and hope that they are kinder to the box than they usually are. It's always a crapshoot with shipped eggs, of course, but two or three years of shipping them the way I did never resulted in badly damaged boxes (I shored up the corners inside) and the customer was always impressed by how well they stood up to the shipping. I leamed how to pack eggs from Dipsy Doodle Doo here on BYC many years ago. She has a tutorial somewhere on her website, or did.

I hope your eggs hatch well for you, Silver Rock.

 

[scoot72]

We have 3 White Rocks, 3 Buff Rocks, 6 Barred Rocks and 10 Partridge Rocks. We also have 3 Brown Leghorns ( 1roo and 2 pullets)and 2 Silver Laced Wyandotte Roosters. Out of them all the Brown Leghorn rooster and 2 Buffs, and 4 Barred are the tamest. They all have had the same amount of contact but those 7 are the only ones that like being handled. The Whites way way not so much. The Partridge hens are coming around and the Wyandotte's a little more each day. So my question is when its time for them to go broody if they do which ones would I try and let hatch? The Buffs and the Barred are really our favorites but if we breed them to the Wyandotte's what would they look like? Would they temperaments be passed thru? I am going to be adding Blue Rocks to my list soon and maybe some Buff Orpington's. The Orp's are because they are more likely to go broody and I could put my rock eggs under them. Do the Rocks go broody often?

 

[Fred's Hens]

There are Barred Rocks that go broody. Since the Cochin was used to create the Barred Rock 130 years ago, it still surfaces from time to time. But Barred Rocks have been so prized for their utility, ie, eggs and meat, that broodiness hasn't been a very desired trait. When a hen is broody, she isn't laying eggs.

With the advent of the super hatcheries of this modern period, broodiness is intentionally discouraged.