How risky is buying hatching eggs this time of year?

[crank]

*Update* I got the 2nd batch of 24 eggs in 6 days. Better than the previous batch by far, still not good though. They are all in the incubator right now. After they hatch, I will give another update on the final overall % of these shipped eggs. The 1st batch were all failures at 7 day candling, of course that batch that had around 2 weeks of shipping. So, not a lot was to be expected of those.

 

[Hholly]

*Update* I got the 2nd batch of 24 eggs in 6 days. Better than the previous batch by far, still not good though. They are all in the incubator right now. After they hatch, I will give another update on the final overall % of these shipped eggs. The 1st batch were all failures at 7 day candling, of course that batch that had around 2 weeks of shipping. So, not a lot was to be expected of those.

Thanks for the update! Hope you get better results with this batch.

 

[crank]

*Update* I figure I would do another update now before I forget  . Out of 24 eggs 3 were removed for being clear and 5 more for Blood rings. So, only 16 eggs are left in the incubator. 

 

[Hholly]

*Update* I figure I would do another update now before I forget

. Out of 24 eggs 3 were moved for being clear and 5 more for Blood rings. So, only 16 eggs are left in the incubator.

 

[KF0002]

I had some BCM eggs shipped from Texas to KY and they arrived on Dec 23rd and set them the next evening. They are due to hatch Jan 7th and so far 12 out of 18 look good. I have some more coming next week. Its a gamble as long as you dont pay extremely high prices for the eggs.

 

[JetCat]

I had some BCM eggs shipped from Texas to KY and they arrived on Dec 23rd and set them the next evening. They are due to hatch Jan 7th and so far 12 out of 18 look good. I have some more coming next week. Its a gamble as long as you dont pay extremely high prices for the eggs.

Congrats!!! but you might wanna double check those dates, if they were set on the evening of the Dec 24th i'd expect a Jan 14th hatch.

 

[KF0002]

Congrats!!! but you might wanna double check those dates, if they were set on the evening of the Dec 24th i'd expect a Jan 14th hatch.

Yeah they were set on the 17th! lol. My bad. I have staggered hatches and chicks coming off every single week. I looked at the wrong week. They are candling beautifully though, and none had detached air cells. There are a couple with saddle air cells but I can live with that.

 

[crank]

*Update* A quick review, we started with 24 eggs. After a day 7 candling 5 were removed for bloodrings and 3 removed for being clear. At day 14 candling all of the remain 16 eggs had growth and movement. 16 Eggs went into the incubator on lockdown on day 18.
After 36 hours of hatching, 14 of the 16 eggs have hatched. So, 14/21 yields a hatching percentage of 67%

. That is good for shipped eggs in general, and I would say REALLY good for shipped eggs during winter and Christmas rush. Now granted this is only one hatch data point and my woes to get the shipped eggs to me is already well documented in this thread. But to me that high of percentage was very surprising.

 

[crank]

Yeah they were set on the 17th! lol. My bad. I have staggered hatches and chicks coming off every single week. I looked at the wrong week. They are candling beautifully though, and none had detached air cells. There are a couple with saddle air cells but I can live with that.

I look forward to see how your hatch goes. A bunch of mine, around 33%, had saddle air cells. All 7 of them hatched and are doing good.

 

[KF0002]

I look forward to see how your hatch goes. A bunch of mine, around 33%, had saddle air cells. All 7 of them hatched and are doing good.

My BCM actually started hatching today, so a few are running ahead of schedule. Two have completely hatched without incident and I have 4 more pips in the incubator as we speak. They aren't due until tomorrow. I also just set some French Cuckoo Marans eggs today I purchased from ebay. I have to say I may be hooked on shipped eggs. As long as I get around a 50% hatch I will be happy as a clam and it will be money well spent.

The key honestly is trying to find eggs as close to your home state as possible to decrease the distance the eggs have to travel. My FCM came out of South Carolina and I received them within 24 hours from the time they were shipped to the time we picked them up at our post office. It was expedited priority shipping and probably the fastest shipment bar none I have ever received! The lows the night they were in transit were in the 20's so I'm keeping my fingers crossed they didn't get too cold. I like to look for sellers in the south since the temps in southern states are warmer for the most part. The eggs won't be exposed to as low of temps as opposed to if they were coming from the north. Try to buy during time periods when your lows are above freezing, and also look at the weather and temps in the state the eggs are coming from. I bought my BCM from a seller in Texas in December and most of them were good. The air cells in my FCM eggs look perfect and as long as they weren't damaged by the cold or scrambled during shipment I should get a few chicks from them. Hopefully!

Someone should probably start a support group right about now. We will call it hatchaholics anonymous. lol