Can you incubate and hatch store-bought eggs?

[wsdareme]

Quote:
"It's the challenge of it all! Why not try? There's nothing to lose, and it would be fun to find out what kinds of chickens Trader Joe's gets their eggs from.

It's not like the cold temps are going to cause weird birth defects or anything -- they're either going to hatch or they're not."

I rest my case!

Way to go!!!!!

 

[pascopol]

Quote:
That's exactly my thought and motivation to try incubate store bought eggs, unfortunately I do not have Traders Joe, and Whole foods in my area does not carry fertile eggs.

It is logical that hens from them would be the best layers, by design and natural sekection.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
I have never seen any label on Trader Joe or others that claims they are guaranteed to be fertile - each and every egg. As you note, I can have a yard full of carefully bred chickens and not be able to make that guarantee. What puzzles me is they do have the words "fertile eggs" on the label, but it is obvious that they are not ALL fertile. If I were you, slickchik, I would ask for my money back. Obviously, the eggs you purchased were misrepresented.

It is even possible that some eggs in the grocery store are fertile. Highly unlikely but possible.... Hens do not need a rooster to lay eggs, so commercial operations do not feed roosters in with their laying flocks... some commercial operations main business is selling hatching eggs to other commercial operations. They may not always have a market for all their hatching eggs, so they can sell the extras on the commercial egg market.

This could account for the occasional chick hatched from "regular "store bought eggs.

The odds of getting a fertile egg that will hatch from a regular grocery store is pretty remote unless they are marked fertile, but it is possible. I cetainly would not try to hatch them.

In the end, isnt that what we do, we play the odds? Slickchik got lucky, I feel, to get so many. I doubt she can reproduce that consistently. I'd like to see her spend a year hatching only Trader Joes eggs, to see just what hatch rates are.
The other side of this is, just what is she getting? As an experiment, sure, it's interesting. But would you want a yard full of them? You gotta wonder.

But we have digressed - like you, I dont think the OP was asking about specialty eggs, "Trader Joes," etc.. I got the sense that the interest was in the common garden variety "factory egg." If so, I wouldn't waste my time.​

 

[macdoogle]

When I tell people I have chickens and get eggs, 9 out of 10 will say' but don't you need a rooster to get eggs?', and then they ask 'Is it ok to eat them?' I don't know if they spend much time thinking about where the stuff in the supermarket comes from. I'm trying the TJ eggs just to see.

 

[bel]

Bought and hatched Rock Island fertile eggs from Lucky's, had a better hatch rate than some of the shipped eggs lol.

 

[Liamm_1]

Out of 24 eggs purchased dtraight from Trader Joe's refrigerator, I have 15 viables in lockdown. Day 21 just began 2 hours ago, so crossing our fingers for anything.

 

[gryeyes]

Woooo hooooo! Lockdown!!!

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
So that makes it 62.5% viabililty. That aint bad at all. Trader Joe is doing something - now, what sort of birds will you get?

 

[speedy2020]

I try 6 eggs from Whole Food and none fertilized. It seems hit for miss.

 

[gryeyes]

If they're the white eggs like mine, most likely White Leghorns. Mine are still in the brooder, or I would take a photo for y'all. (That heat lamp mucks up the ability for a cheap camera to take good photographs.)