ebay egg frustration

[chasing ducks]

Has anyone been egg shopping on ebay lately? I have been looking for egg assortments and am getting quite frustrated! While "mutt" ducks are beautiful and sweet, I am trying to get breeding sets for next years breeding season and there isn't much market for mutt ducklings around here, but that seems to be all I find on ebay! I like the assortments so I can get a mix of breeds and it gives me varied bloodlines. But I've emailed a bunch of sellers on there and every "assortment" is just for mixed breed eggs! I don't get it, I have had great luck in the past getting assortments of eggs, all pure breeds, and all of a sudden it's all mixed flocks. Where did all the assortments of pure eggs go? Grrrr...Oh and the people selling barnyard specials confuse me. One will send you 2 turkey eggs, 6 bantam chicken eggs, 6 chicken eggs, 2 african goose eggs and 4 duck eggs. The ducks pictured are muscovies. Now, chickens and turkeys are 21 day hatchers, right? Goose are about 28 I think and muscovies are 35 days, so how will that hatching work? If you only have one incubator you'd have to set the chickens and turkeys 2 weeks after setting the ducks, wouldn't that lessen the chance of them hatching? Sorry, just frustrated with ebay tonight. LOL I'm probably just cranky anyway, today is my due date and still no baby! Grrrr....

 

[newchickmom09]

I had a big problem with ebay about a month ago . I won a bid on chicken eggs payed and didn't got the eggs 20+ days after I payed! The guy was a jerk and I coulnd never get a hold of him.

It isn't about duck eggs but I figured it might make you feel better to know ebay made someone else mad.

Sorry no baby yet! With my first I was 6 days over due so I feel your pain.

 

[chasing ducks]

LOL This is my third, I swear, isn't there some rumor about them coming faster the more you have? LOL My first was the only one that was early! Both my girls were/are over due! Sorry about the eggs, I have had a similiar issue, it took me 3 weeks to get a shipment of eggs in and completely threw off my setting, out of 8 only 3 of those have made it to 17 days so far.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Chickens take 21 days, turkeys 28, geese 28-32, and scovies 35. Not everyone has only one incubator, so those type of assortments would work well for someone wanting a little bit of everything

I've sold several assortments on here that consisted of chickens, ducks, coturnix quail, button quail, and guineas. Their times are 21, 28, 18, 15, and 26 days.

Those type of assortments can appeal to some buyers

As for the pure assortments, in my opinion, it is a pain in the neck to try to keep several different breeds of duck seperated. You have to have something for them to swim in (don't have to, but it's nice) and changing out small kiddie pools daily for them is a chore. I just let mine mingle together, luckily mine stick with their own kind.

Unluckily, they are not laying, at least not anywhere I can find them

So it seems like the easiest way to ensure pure breeds is to only have one breed, that way you can let them do their thing on your pond, and don't have to clean up after them.

That's my 2 cents, I don't really know what's up. One thing I have noticed is that duck eggs in general are not selling very well on ebay, so maybe the people that usually have the assortments have decided to not bother with listing them there. I'm about to give up listing my quail eggs on there, I've had at least 8 listings that didn't sell, and I still have to pay the listing fee regardless. Going in the wrong direction with my finances that way

 

[chasing ducks]

Oh yeah I can imagine it's a pain seperating them, I wish mixed breed ducklings sold better, it would save me the hassle of sectioning them off, but to make any money I need pure lines. Sigh. I have noticed alot of quail eggs for sale with no bids, I wonder why that is? Looks like a good deal on many of the lots. I've thought about raising quail, but haven't done enough research into diets and housing for them to be comfortable doing that yet. Plus, have to look at the meat market too, are quail good?

 

[RunnerDucks]

The liklihood of one person breeding and selling hatching eggs from multiple breeds and having those animals be high quality is very low.
If you're looking to breed to sell, IMO, you should buy each breed seperately from someone who specializes in them. If you don't, and you do happen to find your assortment you're looking for, you're most likely only going to have low/hatchery quality animals. There's nothing wrong with, for example, runner ducks with off colors, rouens without mass, and oversized calls... IF you're raising them for your own purposes. However, IMHO, breeding low quality purebreds might as well be breeding mutts. If you're trying to start a breeding program, you should start with high quality, and you're not going to find that in a mixed lot on ebay.

And from the buyer's point of view, having bought duck eggs advertised as a specific breed, and hatching them out to find ducklings (now ducks) that are so low quality that they are hardly recognizeable as the breed they were bought as... well, it's beyond frustrating, and I wish more sellers would shoot for quality over quantity.

 

[chasing ducks]

I have ordered from Holderread, which is the best that I am aware of, but I believe that you can get quality (and I have gotten show quality runners from other hatcheries) anywhere, if you know what to look for. If the ducklings aren't up to snuff, selling them to someone who isn't picky about breeding lines and just wants the ducks works.

 

[Evermore Ranch]

We only offer Runner Ducks but we do offer purity by colors. We have them in separate pens and it is a great deal more work, but worth it as we can at least offer an assortment by color. I hope to add another pen one day to have a larger duck breed. Right now we do also have a pen with a variety of breeds (testing to decide what breed later) and an extra runner Drake whom i just couldn't cull. We work hard to offer good quality which increases our record keeping and workload having multiple pens.

 

[katharinad]

I've noticed that some charge more for eggs then you would pay going directly to Holderread. What kind of logic is that. Eggs are usually 1/2 or 1/3 of duckling prices. But no not on ebay. Next you may get odd sized eggs, which turn out to infertile. On top not all eggs will hatch. And finally you as the egg buyer take all the risks. They usually never give you replacements, regardless of paying for shipping or paying less for replacement egg. Still they expect a good feedback on goods delivered, not hatched. And then you never know what quality the stock is off, because they may use someone else's picture. They can tell you whatever, not to mention the wild mallard drake that sneaks in daily. I still love to hatch eggs, but you never know what you get. It's probably best to get ducklings from Holderread and start to incubate their eggs. At least then you know what you have, and don't turn into a poor foul.

Katharina

 

[newchickmom09]

Quote:

I decided after I had my two kids that the rumors were dumb.

My first was 6 days over due and weighed 8 1/2 lbs and my second was probably going to be over due (scedualed c-section 2 days before due date and NO signs of labor comming) and only weighed 7lbs 4 oz. So the rumor the more you have the faster and heavier they are just didn't apply to me. My kids just liked there nice little warm home I made for them, they never wanted to come out.

With my eggs i think I might be VERY lucky to have one hatch. I think more then half aren't even fertile!