broken eggs in mail - what to do with survivors

[opihiman911]

I just got a box in the mail that was the epitomy of "how not to pack eggs" I will post pics of it later on.
I got 2 dozen RIR, austrolorp & barred rock eggs that were placed in egg carton with a paper towel running between the 2 rows, carton wrapped in paper, then 1 sheet of the tiny bubble wrap around carton, placed in a box of crumpled newpaper and broken styrofoam.
Of this 2 dozen there appear to be 8-10 not broken, but are covered in egg yolk that is starting to smell. I will candle them and look for hairline cracks. Should I wash the surviving eggs? warm or cold water? antibacterial soap? I
planned on letting them sit of another day or two because I have another set of eggs coming in, but the bator is up and running right now. Should I go ahead and set them as soon as I clean them up?
This isn't a good start. my last hatch was a 20% hatch flop because of 4 bad fluker. Got that solved with a GQF egg thermometer. Now I got to deal with poorly shipped and broken eggs. I hope my other maran, wellsummer & belvadere eggs come in better shape.
Now off to contact the seller and see what she is willing to do. she advertised bubble wrap & double box and had good feedback on ebay.....none of those happened on my shipment.
I think it was a good suggestion to make a sticky thread of positive egg shipments that the seller went to extra effort to care and ship the eggs. You don't have to put in poor shipments because of liability and slander and legal stuff like that. Just the names of A++ top quality shippers that we can depend on getting quality eggs, packing & shipping.

Aloha,
Cory

 

[speckledhen]

I hate to hear another one of these stories. I'm sorry about your eggs. You will probably have to wash them after that, but I'm not sure what to use to kill the bacteria that is already forming on them from the broken yolks. Someone will know.

 

[TxChiknRanchers]

Aloha Brudda!

Sorry to hear about the eggs, maybe someone with experience can help. Hope you can salvage the rest!

randy

 

[Poison Ivy]

That's too bad I would see if she would at least send some replacements. It's tuff because they can always blame the post office and get away with it even if it's their fault from packing the eggs poorly.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Forget about them. If the ride was that rough that so many broke, even
with the poor packing, I wouldn't even attempt to incubate the others. If
you are the type of person who can try it and not be disappointed when
they don't hatch then go for it. 21 days is just a long time to wait for nothing.

Can't you get some eggs locally? Mailing them out to Hawai just seems to
be too rough of a ride.

 

[CovenantCreek]

I have 4 Barred Rock eggs in my incubator right now that arrived in similar condition to yours -- 6 had been completely crushed and 2 had small cracks, only the 4 looked like they could make it. With a little over a week to go, all 4 have babies growing inside (BIG babies). Still have to wait to see if they hatch, but so far it looks good. What will it hurt to give yours a chance?

Before putting my eggs in the incubator I rinsed them off with warm water to get as much of the egg and packing material crud off as I could.

 

[Queen of the Lilliputians]

I had a similar shipment. Out of the 15 I rec'd, 5 were broken outright, another had a hairline crack. Messy, smelly. Partly the PO's fault, since the box was all dented. Partly the seller's, since they could have done better.

Out of the remaining 9 eggs, one more had a little crack only notic. with candling. All but 2 had loose aircells. Not much happened, and only 1 egg made it passed day 4. But he hatched, so I'm glad I made the effort.

I'd clean them up the best that I could, warm water, and candle them to see if there is other damage. Then set whichever eggs look ok, and keep your fingers crossed. I feel like it's worth it to give the little guys a chance.. but maybe that's just ME! Plus.. by the time my hatching eggs get here I'm spilling over with excitement. Better something for my wait than nothing (throwing in the trash). It should be obvious after day 5 or so if you're going to have to wait the rest of the time, or just write them off.

I'm no expert though. Someone else might have a much better method for cleaning them off and such.

Good luck! I hope a few made it through for you.

Meghan

 

[Bmiller9735]

I just had the same thing happen today. I bid on a dozen eggs and they arrived this morning. The USPS box was in pristine condition and inside that box was another box wrapped in bubble wrap also in perfect condition. But when I opened the second box it reeked due to 2 FLATTENED crushed eggs which got a small amount of yolk yolk on a few of the eggs. I can't imagine how that happened. It actually looks like the USPS didn't play soccer with the box this time. Maybe the shipper crushed them as she closed the box, I don't know? She has 100% positive feed back and everyone else raves about her shipping methods. I let them rest but didn't wash them bc I've always heard that's bad. I guess it couldn't be worse than bacteria all over them so I'm crossing my fingers SOMETHING will hatch. I'm not too hopeful though, the last time I had a similar experience nothing was ever viable. I'll re post in a week about their progress.

 

[meganhundley]

I hope I have better luck. Everyone had nothing but positive remarks for my sellers packaging. I have a different ? though, on shipped eggs, does anyone know how long they can stay in transit at high/low fluctuating temps and not be affected too negatively? I won an auction for 6 Welsummer eggs and am to recieve 12. I sent the seller a message and asked if he could delay shipping until Monday so I didn't have to risk the eggs sitting over the weekend at some USPS sorting facility in God only knows where in a non climate controlled environment, but, of course, he marked them shipped at 7:45 yesteray (Thursday) morning but they didn't actually ship out until after 9:30 pm yesterday. They only have to go from mid New Jersey to mid east Virginia but my estimated delivery date is Monday. When I tracked it again a few minutes ago around 1:30 am, it said they arrived at the Philadelphia, PA facility at 10:50. I'm crossing my fingers that they make it here by Saturday but at this rate it's not looking good.