Fertile eggs at the grocery store? ****Picture Added Page 4****

[BorderKelpie]

Wow,greathorse, thanks! I know what I'm doing when I (if ever argg!) get off work.

 

[sangel4you]

so what did your candeling show?!

 

[johnnalei]

Well I candled last night and there are little chicks growing in there. Some I can't tell (it's only day 9 or 10), but some for sure have little chickies in them. Actually they are doing MUCH better than some ebay eggs I put in at the same time

 

[GardeNerd]

Yeah! I can't wait to hear what they turn out to be!

 

[johnnalei]

Just an update...candled last night (day 17) and ALL are developing. Who knew?

 

[Beau coop]

So what happened? How many hatched? Are they leghorns? Oh, the suspense is killing me!

 

[Sillystunt]

OMG,

 

[marytoast]

tell us!!! we want to know. we want to see pics of chicks!!!!!!!

 

[dancingbear]

Getting some fertile eggs at the grocery or health food store is a great inexpensive way to test your incubator, or to use for a hatching project for the kids, rather than spend big bucks on shipped eggs that may not hatch anyway.

If the eggs have been too cold for too long, they won't hatch, but often they do just fine. At least a high enough percentage to give it a try, especially if you don't mind getting whatever breed they turn out to be. The females will likely be good layers, anyway.

There was a thread about how to read the date codes on the cartons, so you can be sure and only buy really fresh ones.

I don't remember for sure, but I there's a set of numbers indicates the day of the year that the eggs were layed. So if the number was 001 that would be Jan 1, 015 would be Jan 15, and so on. You can check your calendar, and figure out what day of the the year you're on, and look for the most recent date on the fertile egg cartons. Today's number would be 195.

Looking at some old cartons I have, they're not always in the same order. For example, one has:
DEC1008
3
316P1752

So those eggs were produced Nov 13, '08, (day 316, the number before the P) and the expiration date was Dec10. I have no idea what the little 3 off to the side is for, or the 1752 either.

The day of year number is almost always followed by a 'P' and another number. Sometimes there's a dash or a space, sometimes not.

Hope that helps, so you can get nice, fresh eggs. The time kept cold will be reduced, too, so there's a better chance they'll still be viable.

 

[Sitka]

Part of the code has to do with the facility where the eggs were packed. I saw a video on this on YouTube not long ago. The number of the year, as explained above, is the date that the eggs were packed, not laid. Still a way to get the freshest ones that were packed.