Eggs in the mail on day 4 now.....have they gone bad?

I once had eggs take a full week (sent Saturday, arrived Saturday) from another BYC'er in eastern KY (I'm in south-central). Granted, it was December, but I still had 17 of 21 eggs (25 eggs sent, 4 were broken ) hatch. So I wouldn't write them off just yet

 

I wouldn't worry about them too much. I've had eggs that took a little longer than I liked to get to me & still had pretty good hatch rates. A couple of months ago, some Jersey Giant eggs took about a week to get here & I had a 55% hatch rate with them.

Good luck

 

I would candle them as soon as I get them, "loose air Cells", lately I have been getting a lot of eggs with it... But you should be OK. You may not get a 100% but you should get some to hatch fine.

 

You should also set them as soon as you get them. Just don't turn them for the first day. This way, if any have started developing in-transit they can just keep on chugging

 

I incubate all eggs that come, loose cells or not. Some hatch anyhow. Some don't. I had eggs lost in the mail for 17 days. One developed almost to hatch then died. Not bragging on that hatch, just saying, eggs can sometimes last a lot longer than you think and still be viable.

 

Ok here is my very limited experience...just thought I would share. I had eggs shipped that got lost and took 8 days to get to me. A couple started to developed but quit early. No chicks..
I had eggs shipped 2 day express and only one hatched.
I had eggs shipped that got to me on the 4th day and half of them are developing well (one more week till due date).

Here is something I copied from a member here named Fogelly..
"I was concerned when they arrived because PO handled them rough so I changed my usual incubating strategy. The air cells looked pretty bad so I incubated them for three days before switching on the turner. I also left them up right (big end up) during lock down and resisted any temptation to candle them other than days 7, 14 and 18. I think it helps if they not handled much. "

I am gonna try this on my next shipment if the air cells look loose.

 

Quote:I tried this on the last batch of chicken eggs that were sent to me..
first the eggs just looked old.. the air cells were much too large.. and several of the eggs were scrambled.. every one had a large detached air cell.. so the post office was not kind at all to them.. out of 12 eggs.. on day 7..only ONE showed any signs of life... so on day 10 i checked the other 11 again before throwing them out... still nothing but lots of sloshing and detached air cells.. when i broke them open there was 0 signs of life... so between the heat.. the post office..the eggs possibly being too old in the first place.. even with letting them sit for three days in the bator before turning they still had big detached air cells and were dead eggs.. now had they been FRESH eggs i think it would have made all the difference.. but the air cells were the size of eggs that were closer to 20 days of incubation when they arrived. the extremely large air cells could have been due to the heat.. but i seriously doubt that two days in transit would have resulted in air cells THAT big.. which pretty much told me that the seller had sent me very old eggs
So with the next batch of shipped eggs.. if they look fresher and have detached air cells i will give that method another go.. and keep my fingers crossed that the eggs will be fresh enough to repair themselves