Egg shipping in winter

[Pele]

Hi all,

I am all set up with an incubator and a breeder willing to ship me eggs, but the weather here has turned for the colder, and I am not worried about it affecting viability of the eggs. It figures that the weather would do this to me, as it's been such a mild winter until I tried to get eggs

So my question is: is it possible to ship eggs safely in winter? Does it massively impact viability? And if so, at what temperatures is it unsafe? We will be getting down to the upper 20s at night, but experiencing high 40s in the daytime for the next week.

Thank you for any information that you can provide!

 

[chicmom]

I've gotten two batches of hatching eggs in the bitter cold of wintertime, and absolutely NONE hatched. I don't know about what kind of temps kill an embryo though......I might suggest you don't waste your money......Maybe you can find someone close by who will give you fertile eggs.....

 

[Shayna]

I have been shipping and receiving eggs and it has been going well. If the eggs are individually wrapped and well insulated, they should be fine. It's better for them to be cool than be in excessive heat. However there is still a risk. If they were left outside in 20 degree temperatures somewhere all night it could ruin them, however if they're stored with a bunch of other packages which is typical, even if unheated, it would take awhile for the eggs to actually reach the outside low temperature. Bottom line is, there are no guarantees, but they will probably be fine.

 

[Sphinx]

I had 12 eggs shipped to me in Mid-December, from a distance of over 2000 miles. Temps have been in the teens at night, up to 32 during the day.

I had 10 start developing, and I go into lockdown with 7 eggs tomorrow.

 

[Pele]

Thank you for your input everyone! This is a very reputable breeder that comes highly recommended here on the forums (and from others who work in the breed), so I fully trust her to package the eggs perfectly.

Based on this idea, I'll go ahead and order a small number of eggs, and cross my fingers! I will go ahead and update this thread with fertility when I get them and candle at day 7.

Thanks again! BYC is the best collection of people on the internet.