Bad Hatch

[Widget]

Okay turkey experts tell me where I went wrong? I had 16 midget white eggs in the incubator that were due to hatch on the fifth. Only one did. There was only one other egg that even developed.
The eggs were shipped. Excellent packing and no noticeable PO damage to the box. I unpacked them and let them set out overnight before placing them in the incubator I also used a turner. Temperature was 99.5 with the humidity at 40. It did fluctuate about half way through incubation down to 98.2 for a couple hours. It also went as high as 100.7 for a couple hours. Humidity was around 40-45 up until lock down. At that point temperature stayed around 99.5 -99.9 with a humidity from 62-67.
So was it me or just bad luck? I was really looking forward to having some MW around the place. No one local has any so I don't know whether to try again with hatching or just settler for another breed that I can get local.

 

[OmaBird]

I hatch out hundreds of turkeys a year but have no luck at all from shipped eggs. For me it is the biggest waste of money and time. Sorry I can't help when it comes to shipped eggs. I think they are bad when you get them. lots of scrambed eggs and broken air cells. Nothing you did. JMO

 

[ziggywiggy]

If you order eggs again, candle them and see if the air sack moves. If it does, they're no good because the air sack has vibrated loose from the membrane that holds it in place. That's the big problem with shipped eggs and why so many of them fail to hatch. It's also something most people don't look for.

 

[poultryfan73]

I just had 7 eggs that i bought and i had a 85% hatch rate... ive never had problems with shipped eggs.

 

[ziggywiggy]

Quote:
I've had terrible luck with shipped eggs and good sucess with my eggs. A lot of it has to do with how far they're shipped. Eggs going from New York to California are going to have more problems than from New York to PA.

 

[longranger]

Myself and local friends have hatched eggs from all over the country. Certainly the USPS takes its toll in rough handling and possibly xray but a remarkable % of eggs that are good in the first place do just fine after shipping. The two most important factors are the hatchability of the eggs initially and good packing. There is an element of luck in the eggs being handled reasonably by the USPS but I have seen little if any correlation with distance shipped in the lower 48.

A third critical factor is how the eggs are handled on the receiving end. By description it sounds like you did everything right. That is often not the case. Incubators with major temp spikes, bad calibration, forgetting to hand turn for a few days etc. are responsible for the bad outcomes of many hatches. Always easier to blame the USPS or the person who sent you the eggs. With rare exceptions my % hatch is similar with shipped eggs and eggs from my own hens. Similarly eggs I have shipped have about the some hatch rate by others as I get if they have a dependable bator and are meticulous.

All that said if you hatch shipped eggs you will have some disappointing results, usually with no real explanation. Maybe it is bad luck or just a physical cause that we cannot detect. I agree with Ziggywiggy that seeing broken air sacks is bad news. Those particular eggs have rarely if ever hatched for me but others from the same box with intact air cells do.

 

[ziggywiggy]

Quote:
I've heard this debate many times and many people would disagree with you. In my opinion and others, shipped eggs will never have the success rate non-shipped eggs do. As the matter of fact, Ideal poultry used to recommend not shipping eggs and from going over their order forms recently, they may have stopped shipping eggs alltogether. Also, eggs in USPS's hands for 7 days are going to be more prone to damage than eggs in their hand for 2 days. That's just common since.
I'm not trying to hurt anyones business here. The fact is, a lot of times the best way to get quality is through shipped eggs and a 50 or 30 percent success rate is worth the price you pay. If I can get 3 quality birds out of 6 eggs, I can live with that.
And that is all I will say on the matter.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

With shipped eggs there is no telling what happens to them from point A to point B. We have shipped out eggs from the same pen of birds on the same day and one person reports a good hatch the other poor.

Steve

 

[longranger]

I sincerely did not mean to offend or come off as a know it all. Guess I have been luckier than some with both ends of the shipped egg process. Also for me a 30% to 50% hatch on shipped that gives me a few good chicks,poults etc.. to work with is a good hatch. Below average and not ideal but makes me happy.

My screen name longranger comes from my other main hobby, long range sportfishing. A similar split of opinions exists there with some people coming off each fishing trip saying fishing is just not what it used to be and others feeling it was a great trip or at least satisfied. Bet you can guess which group I am usually in.

 

[tony garza]

I've had very good luck with shipped eggs. Mostly over 60% hatch. With the last batch of turkey eggs that were shipped to me, I had 13 eggs and 9 hatched. That's great. My problem is keeping the hatchlings alive. Of the 9 I only managed to get 4 to live past 24 hours. I think I know what I did wrong. The last turkey hatches, I've managed to hatch some chicks about a week before the turkeys and put the chicks in with the new turkeys. I didn't do this with this batch. Oh well...............I haven't made a mistake in at least 10 to 15 minutes !!!

Tony