How reliable are eggs bought via the internet?

Most places like the hatcheries guarantee live arrival. I've only received one shipment of live birds and they all did arrive alive.

If you are talking eggs. Shipped eggs usually do arrive with about a 50% hatch rate. Sometimes an egg get broken, sometimes air cells get detached and such but about 50% hatch rate is normal though there are some that have achieved much higher.

Now if you are talking just bob and jill's. I don't know if I would trust them to ship live chicks but eggs really aren't that hard to pack. you bubble wrap them in a heavy duty box and ship priority.

 

I've had good success rates with private sellers on ebay. They usually send a couple extra eggs in case any get broken in shipment. My last batch was for ten eggs. They sent twelve, but one was cracked. One egg died in the first week of hatching, one chick died right after hatching, but I've got nine healthy chicks now. I ordered a batch of twelve eggs after that, and got fifteen. One was cracked, and two were infertile/died early, but I've still got the twelve eggs I paid for looking healthy, and due next week.

 

It depends on a lot of factors, mainly which USPS workers handle your specific package of eggs. Disgruntled employees handling your package versus a postal worker who owns chickens themselves could have a much different outcome.

Thus far I've had good fortune with hatching eggs and the USPS's care of them. I've also had hatching eggs that were **very poorly** packaged by the breeder/seller and still had 90% development and 7/11 hatched out fine...that...is due to the USPS's care of them.

There are a few places I would say stay the heck away from but I won't be publicizing them on a public board. Suffice it to say - don't trust a pretty website based on the composition of their site organization and graphics.

 

Shipped eggs are always a risk. YOu can reduce that risk by buying from BYC sources. We get to rate each other. The USPS has smashed entire boxes of eggs but they are the only game in town for shipping eggs. So . . . . since the shipping is out of your control try to find reputable shippers-- go to the bantam threads and put out feelers to find happy customers. Look at the ratings of the sources in the buy-sell-trade section on BYC.

Have you considered hooking up with a breeder at a local show-- usually a lot of shows to help you get connected. Or at least contact the club secretary and tell him/her what you are looking for. THe secretaries know everyone and are a fantastic resource.

Do consider some of the better breeders like Urch and Brown and the list goes on. Bantams are more popular than LF.

I've shipped a lot of eggs . . . . .

 

I have got shipped eggs twice now. Beware of your mail carrier. Make sure they like you!! Mine drop kicked my last box or something. he says he simply dropped it but it was very damaged. Tomorrow is hatch day for what managed to make it here despite my mail carrier being a ** bad word** hole
The time before this i had eggs shipped that made it in perfect condition and all except 4 hatched. Those 4 weren't fertile. I suggest looking to buy eggs from people on this site rather then from e-bay and so on. On here you can ask questions to the person without them getting offended such as what are they fed, how old are the eggs, how are they being shipped, how are they wrapped.
I tried those questions on e-bay and was told to "either buy my eggs or don't" instead of getting real answers.

 

I recently decided to give hatching a try so jumped on ebay and started buying eggs all eggs arrived in decent condition except for a few (cracks).I received eggs from as far as maine( i live in n.illinois) hatch rate imo was decent considering all the horror stories i've read about some where 100% most were40-50% but overall decent. Ordering multiple eggs caused staggard hatchs which im sure contributed to some degree of variance in my success. I would say that peoples incubation methods cause alot of the problems even if they dont want to except the fact! yes the p.o is horrible but not just with eggs!! I would also recommend shopping here as just completed a hatch from amembers eggs with great success.Go for it but realize first that there will be some dissapointment nothings guaranteed also if your looking for 6 ya might want to order 12 just in case!!