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Thoughts on having eggs shipped to you to incubate?

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Anarchy82

Anarchy82

Chirping
8 Years
Aug 10, 2011
197
0
89
Stroudsburg, PA
Hello to everyone.
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In the next week or so I plan on incubating some eggs to try and help grow my chicken family. I am getting a couple eggs from a friend who lives not to far from me. But I found online (ebay) someone selling 6 Mottled Houdan Chicken Eggs, and instantly loved the look of the breed and the fact the have 5 toes instead of 4.

My question is to see who out there has purchased eggs shipped to them, and have you had luck? I know there is always a chance of not having any eggs hatch, even with eggs not shipped. But I want to get a feel on what people think.

Thank you.
 
If you buy shipped eggs alot an are good at incubating you can expect about a 50% hatch rate over time. Meaning if you normally hatch your eggs at 80+% hatch rate, when you buy shipped eggs you will get a lot of shipments that hatch nothing an a lot that do great. Any hatch that gives you 50% is a great hatch. So as long as you understand that from the beginning an bid with that in mind you will do ok.
 
Quote:
Shipping eggs is tricky and it has nothing to do with bad sellers. I have done eight batches of shipped eggs this year and out of those three of the batches I received never developed past a week. In looking online and talking to people I have found out that if the eggs get put through an xray machine at the post office it can do this to the eggs and ruin an entire batch. This was with boxes that were clearly marked live embryos please do not xray. A way I found that you can get around it is to pay a little bit extra for UPS ground shipping rather than USPS if the seller will do it. Because the eggs don't go on the plane they won't get xrayed by mistake. Then you only have to deal with temperature, and rough treatment as issues.

All in all out of 8 batches my first two were three eggs each and I hatched 1 egg out of each batch.

My second set had three sets. I got one batch that didn't develop and a second batch that developed and I had a 62% hatch rate. The third batch I hatched a 70% hatch rate.

In the set I am doing right now I have three sets of shipped eggs. One set didn't develop, second set is hatching now and so far 8 out of 12 or 66% hatch rate with 4 eggs to go and the third set did not develop at all.

I guess it's up to you if you want to have eggs shipped. I would definitely pay the extra shipping if the seller allows for UPS ground rather than USPS other than that you will get some that won't hatch and some that will. I have been very pleased so far with the quality of my birds that I have hatched out from shipped eggs but I always try to buy more than I want so that I can account for some not hatching.

I hope this helps.
Lily
 
Thank you rebelcowboysnb and LilyD

I know this is more of what people think, then an actual question. But its good to hear from people that have done it, and little tricks they have learned.

I do remember reading in the persons listing that how if the package gets x-rayed it can damage the eggs.
That is something I will have to try hard to make sure does not happen, so I will see if I can get them shipped UPS Ground.
 
I would suggest buying eggs from BYC members. You can expect just about any hatch rate 0-100% depending on fertility, weather, incubating methods, distance of travel, and how well the shipping company treats your package. For general purposes, i would say a 50-60% hatch rate is common on shipped eggs.
 
My hatch rate on shipped eggs in a homemade, still air, hand turning, incubator is about 15% so far. Keeping in mind that DH and I have problems putting anything together, we are pretty pleased with the outcome.
 
If you are anywhere with high temps, don't do it. In the Spring, I had an 85% hatch rate, but since June, my hatches from shipped eggs have been horrible. Last two hatches-- 1 chick each out of 24 eggs each time. Cha-ching.

Once I thought about it, those eggs are sitting in a box in a truck in 95+ degree heat. Blah.
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Another thing to think of is the distance the eggs have to travel. I had eggs shipped twice from the same seller and the first batch nothing, the box seemed to be lost as no tracking info showed up from drop off until they arrived, the second I had tracking info and got 3 out of 13. I am currently on my 3rd batch of shipped eggs that took 2 days to get to me instead of the 4+ days previously on the 1st and 2nd batches and I have 9 out of 16 showing development. For me it is the only way to get the breeds I want.
 

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