48 shipped eggs; 15 made it to lockdown

[Bicoastal]

I ordered 48 eggs. Rested before incubation. Five were broken during shipping. Four were unfertilized. A bunch of quitters at day 10, three quit in late incubation, the others quit somewhere along the way. Not too many saddled air cells, but some.

15 have made it to lockdown. I expect significant further loss of eggs that actually hatch.

Is there a BYC hatching average for shipped eggs?

Eggs were a solution to a timing and availability problem. With this failure rate, I probably won't do shipped eggs again.

Now we wait.

ETA to exact # shipped eggs

 

[Debbie292d]

Prior years, shipped eggs for me had about a 70% hatch rate.

This year, with about 8 different shipments, around 30%.

Never had broken eggs, just a rare unfertilized one, and several saddled eggs, which mostly hatched.

I wouldn't get eggs from wherever you got those as broken eggs during shipment and that many unfertilized is very poor. I hope you got a good deal on them. Mine were very pricey, as in around $80 - $100/dozen. I'd get done hatching and figure out what each chick was worth lol. Then scratch my head if it was really worth all this. When you see your chicks, you say, "yep!"

 

[Ridgerunner]

Is there a BYC hatching average for shipped eggs?

You'll probably see 50% as an average, which is pretty close to my experience. But that is spread out over several hatches. My best hatch with shipped eggs was 100%. My worst was 20%. I've never had an individual hatch with shipped eggs that was even close to 50% but if you average them all out it is close to 50%. Mine are either good or bad, no average hatches.

Part of the problems (when you have them) comes from the shipper, how they collect and store them and how they package them. My problems have been more to issues during shipping, how badly are they shaken or do they get hot.

Interestingly my 100% and my 20% rates were from the same shipper. They were packaged the same, none were broken. They were shipped within a week of being laid. I think one batch was mishandled during shipping.

 

[Bicoastal]

I edited my OP. It was 48 eggs. One has hatched. Four more pipped.

I remembered it as 50 but the packing was 4 dozen-egg cartons in a rectangular box. Egg cartons packed parallel to box and snugly. The short ends of all but one side of one carton had broken eggs.

If I had only ordered two dozen and the short ends of each carton were broken during shipment, I’d be down quite a lot before I even started.

At 5/48, I just moved on. I had built in room for failure. Didnt expect THIS much failure.

This vendor offers no guarantee on shipping eggs arriving intact*, not that I can see on their site.

*I understand no guarantee on hatch rate, I mean shipping itself.

 

[Susan Skylark]

You can’t apply an average hatch rate to an individual egg or hatch, as it is a calculated value based on multiple hatches, the more hatches the better the statistic but not helpful on a single hatch level. The average human body temp is 98.6, mine is 96.8, my normal is not average (but it is dyslexic!). I’ve never had 50% on shipped eggs or even in male/female ratio in hatched chicks (within a hatch, long term it is 50%). I had 25% hatch rate on shipped eggs this spring and 80% hatch rates on 2 sets last spring my first time incubating anything! Time in transit, heat or cold, and a bumpy ride can really screw up a hatch, no matter how they are packed or how good the fertility but sometimes you get 80% hatch rates too, you just never know.