Buying ebay eggs

[janiedoe]

Have you bought eggs from Ebay?
If so, how was your hatch?
Do you recommend any particular seller?
Do you Not recommend any particular seller?
Have you ever sold eggs on Ebay?
If you bought eggs from Ebay, did you worry about bringing disease into your flock via hatched chicks? Has this happened to you or to anyone that you know?

 

[Kiki]

You send me links to advertisements of stuff you see on eBay and I'll research them for you.

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

I’ve bought a LOT of eBay eggs. Something about the lure of late night online egg shopping gets me everytime.

I’ve had good hatches and terrible hatches. My best advice is keep it within 500 miles of your location. For me, in the West, that’s about 1 state away. That’s made the biggest difference in hatch rates. All the cool stuff always seems to be on the opposite end of the country but I’ve wasted enough money on eBay eggs to have some mild restraint.

Ask the seller as many questions as you need to: additional pictures, shipping procedures, guarantees, NPIP.

I consider it a gamble. Just like any shipped eggs. Which is some of the fun for me. It’s also given me some decent contacts. If I want eggs from them again I reach out directly to the breeders (bypass eBay).

 

[MGG]

Have you bought eggs from Ebay?
If so, how was your hatch?
Do you recommend any particular seller?
Do you Not recommend any particular seller?
Have you ever sold eggs on Ebay?
If you bought eggs from Ebay, did you worry about bringing disease into your flock via hatched chicks? Has this happened to you or to anyone that you know?

I bought some bobwhite quail eggs from ebay, but those were the only eggs I've ever gotten from ebay.
I ordered a dozen, got 15, and had 13 hatch. So it was very good for me.
But again, not chickens. I didn't worry as much about illness with them as I would have with chickens. I would only order eggs from people with clean, healthy looking birds, kept in good conditions with no known deaths to illness. And even then, I'd still worry.
I'd only buy from NPIP tested places too. Not that I so much believe in the testing, but because most people that have it done care about their birds and are trying to do things right.

 

[Egg Blues]

I’ve bought a LOT of eBay eggs. Something about the lure of late night online egg shopping gets me everytime.

I’ve had good hatches and terrible hatches. My best advice is keep it within 500 miles of your location. For me, in the West, that’s about 1 state away. That’s made the biggest difference in hatch rates. All the cool stuff always seems to be on the opposite end of the country but I’ve wasted enough money on eBay eggs to have some mild restraint.

Ask the seller as many questions as you need to: additional pictures, shipping procedures, guarantees, NPIP.

I consider it a gamble. Just like any shipped eggs. Which is some of the fun for me. It’s also given me some decent contacts. If I want eggs from them again I reach out directly to the breeders (bypass eBay).

Yes I bought off eBay and of the nine eggs one hatched. It was the most beautiful chick I've ever owned.
I probably won't do it again, trying to hatch shipped eggs is a little too heartbreaking. But check back with me next spring. I always fall stupid in love when I start seeing those Southern chicks hatching out .

I've gotten several shipments of fertile eggs and incubated them now (sorry, none from eBay)--so far the best hatch rate I've had was to get three out of about 12 that hatched. The average has been under 10% hatch rate, for example, one egg out of two dozen hatched in one batch...frustrating. It has clearly been shipment related, since some shipments seem better than others. It has a lot to do with the handling the package received during shipping.

My theory (untested, but want to test this) is that the best way to improve the odds would be to have the seller ship the carefully wrapped eggs in a a larger box, one that accommodates the original box intended to ship them plus a heavy sandbag underneath of it. The "ballast" would accomplish two or three things:

1) Make the box heavy enough that it cannot lightly be tossed around;
2) Weight the box at its bottom so that it would be unlikely to be turned upside down (air cells should stay upright); and
3) Potentially provide a thermal mass that would resist rapid temperature change, such as if the package were placed next to a sunny window during part of its journey, or perhaps while it was at 37,000 feet altitude in the cargo hold of the airplane for five hours.

I don't know of anyone shipping sandbags with their fertile eggs. It shouldn't be much added expense for the potential gains--I'm guessing it could improve hatch rates markedly.

 

[Kiki]

I highly recommend not buying eggs from anyone that you cannot research well.
If they do not have a BYC profile then it's a red flag for me.

 

[Justso]

Yes I bought off eBay and of the nine eggs one hatched. It was the most beautiful chick I've ever owned.
I probably won't do it again, trying to hatch shipped eggs is a little too heartbreaking. But check back with me next spring. I always fall stupid in love when I start seeing those Southern chicks hatching out .

 

[Egg Blues]

I bought some "hatching eggs" off ebay. Every single one of them arrived with broken aircells. I gave them to a hen to TRY to hatch. Of course, none hatched. I got my money back but it was a fight. Ebay had to inform the seller that I was going to get my money back regardless (through their guarantee) of what she did as she was refusing to refund my money. Ebay told her it would not look good for the her, the seller, to not refund my money so eventually she agreed on the refund.

In most cases, it's really not the seller's fault. You should be trying to get your money back from the postal system, not the seller. I think when one is purchasing hatching eggs through the mail one must be prepared to accept the risks.

I've never tried to get my money back when the eggs had been packed so carefully, individually wrapped in bubble wrap, packing peanuts or rice husks around everything, etc. Sometimes the seller added an extra egg or two that I hadn't paid for just for good measure. It isn't the seller's fault they didn't hatch. It's a known risk and a sort of goes-without-saying understanding that the buyer accepts the risk.

 

[Egg Blues]

I’ve bought off eBay twice now, same seller. Seller has an NPIP facility and even posts a picture of her certificate, did a great job of packing, excellent reviews (curiously, none of them on hatch rates), and she marks the packaging well. My first round was 6+2, 1 broke, and 2 duds, 2 seemed to have quit halfway, 1 was chirping but never hatched, and 1 chick survived who is a rooster. My second round I’m on right now 12+3 for ‘better odds’. None broken on arrival. One dud, 2 hatched so far between day 21-22, waiting until day 25 to investigate. I don’t know if I’ll buy again, all these beautiful eggs and nothing.

Those are about the typical odds I've seen as well. The first batch, one chick had to be helped to hatch as it seemed to have been shrink-wrapped, even though the humidity post-lockdown had not dipped below 60 and the incubator hadn't been opened. But only three of that batch survived, and we eventually opened the other eggs very carefully, and found that they were all clear, as if they had not been fertile (but I think they simply had not made it past the shipping saga).

Basically, I would say if you buy shipped eggs, expecting a 10% hatch rate, you should be less disappointed when this is what you actually get. Be prepared to pay for 10 eggs to get one or two chicks. If the price of those eggs is worth the low numbers of chicks that they will produce, go for it. If you would feel highly disappointed to get a 10-15% hatch rate, then find another way to acquire what you're wanting. Shipped eggs can sometimes be 100% DOA, and, on the other hand, it is possible that you might get as much as half to hatch, or more. Expecting more than 50% hatch rate on shipped eggs is a sure way to be disappointed, and even a 25% hatch rate may not be yours. Anything above 50% is a lucky fluke of the mail system and/or a credit to the seller who packed the order. But the dismal hatch rates are unlikely to be the fault of the seller in most cases.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

I have had really poor hatch rates, but what I do get seem to be great quality.