hey I was just wondering, i know you can't hatch most brands of store bought eggs, but the kind that say on the carton the chickens free ranged and were all natural, can you incubate those and get some fertile ones?
Well you can try, but just because they are free range does not mean there is a rooster in the bunch. If they say they are fertile, as some do in health food stores, that would be your best bet, but being refrigerated would cut down on the hatch rate.
I searched my area for an organic food store and was expecting to have to experiment with different "free-range" and "cage free" eggs. People on this site have had some success with those. Instead I was lucky enough find eggs marked "Fertile" for $3 a dozen. I incubated them and 8 out of 12 showed some development. The others were probably infertile as they didn't develop at all. I'd try calling around your area and ask if they have any eggs marked fertile. If you can't find any then just check some free range eggs for fertility dots.
That's an idea. Buy some of those eggs and crack a few open to see if there is any fertility in the batch. If you don't know how, check out the pictures in the following thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16008
I have seen the sucess stories of this and I want to try it out too. I went and bought a $5.00/doz carton of Organic Free Range eggs that were really pretty and brown from our grocery store...I cracked a few open first to see if they were fertile and they were not So, next time I am at the grocery store I will try a different carton until I find one with fertile eggs and then I am going to try to incubate them to see what I get
