Hatching store eggs?

[beakkeeper]

There have been a couple posts regarding hatching eggs from natural stores such as Trader Joe's. How do you know that the eggs are fertile? are they labeled that? Maybe the local Mississippi Market Co-op would have fertile eggs???

 

[twigg]

Quote:
You can get fertile eggs in some stores. Chino Farms in CA supplies millions per year.

The problem is getting them quickly enough. Farms have 30 days to ship eggs to stores, and still call them fresh. Most ship much earlier than that, often within days, but actually finding any in stores that are under two weeks old is hard.

The other issue is that they will, even from the best suppliers, be mongrels

 

[GardeNerd]

My kids' science project is about "Can grocery store eggs hatch?"

Our results so far, show only eggs labeled "Fertile" on the box develop. We have tried 3 varieties of cage free and free range eggs to date. None have shown any signs of development. None were labeled fertile. One box had art work with a rooster on the box.

Most of the Fertile Chino Valley Ranch Nutri Fresh and Trader Joes batches develop at a rates of 60-75%. These boxes were all labeled Fertile
clearly on the boxes. The eggs labeled fertile at Whole Foods were not fertile. 0% developed. We even cracked open a whole dozen and looked at the dots to see if any were fertilized. Nope.

The oldest eggs we have had success with is 9 days after packing, based on the code in front of the sell by date. I am aware of other folks with success with slightly older eggs here at BYC.

We live in Southern California and fertile eggs are not too difficult to find here. Maybe an Asian market might have them if you can't find them elsewhere? The trick is finding the ones that aren't too old.

I believe the conclusion on the science project will show, here in SoCal the eggs need to be labeled fertile in order to develop if you are buying eggs from a regular chain type market. Good luck.
Our little Joey appears to be a pullet so far. She has a nice disposition and is growing quickly, 4 weeks old on Tuesday. This is the only chick from the experiment we have kept. Good Luck.

Edited to add a link to the science project page since it was completed:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=20741-science-project

 

[beakkeeper]

Quote:
Fun! What breed do you think she is?

 

[gabrielle1976]

Hello, that sounds like a cool experment, did you just decide to do it or did you find it in a book or something? I am thinking of home schooling my son ans am always on the look out for ideas.
How can you tell an unfertel egg by cracking it open?

 

[Kim_NC]

Quote:
Excellent pictures of fertile & unfertile eggs on this blog page:

http://animalsinthecity2.webs.com/whativelearned.htm

 

[gabrielle1976]

OOOHHHH that was intersting thank you very much.

 

[b.hromada]

I agree, very interesting, I sure didn't know that!

 

[GardeNerd]

Quote:
To make a long story a little shorter, the project grew out of my daughter's curiosity. We were ordering chicks from a hatchery so we got only (90%) pullets, but she wanted to see our chickens hatch. She built an incubator with some help. My son got a little interested when we didn't have any local sources for hatching eggs and decided to try fertile store eggs. He didn't think it could be done. Thus, the science project began.

Here is the thread we had going while working on the first batch of eggs.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=124940

The 1st chick looks like a leghorn. We have been told it probably had a Hy-Line 98 hen for a mom. We don't know what the rooster dad was. It came from the white fertile eggs from Trader Joes. This is the only chick we have kept longer than a week. We really hope it is a pullet. The brown eggs from Nurti-Fresh hatched what looked like California Whites. They were almost all yellow with a couple of random flecks of dark grey or black.

The photos on the website Kim_NC mentions are the pics we originally used to compare. I'm not sure if it was from that source or another though. I found them through the "sticky" in incubating and hatching eggs forum.

Edited on 3/21/09 to add:
We have since decided the science project chick is not a Leghorn or Hy Line 98. She is a different Hy-Line breed called Hy-Line W 36. This is due to her disposition. She looks like a leghorn, but acts like an Orpington. My kids cuddle her and she comes up to us all the time to be petted on the front of her chest now. She seems to enjoy sitting with us as much as our Buff Orpington and more than the Barred Rocks and Easter Eggers. The "36" is listed as docile. She is surely that.