Looking for Fertilized Eggs

[shishimarie]

hello chicken lovers
My buff orphington went broody again so I’m wanting to place fertizled eggs under her. Can anyone suggest some hatcheries that sell fertilized eggs? I’m looking for silkies and other orphington colors but I am open to any breeds.
Right now my flock consist of her (buff orphington) and 4 chicks she hatched in early summer. The chicks are about 11wks old. 2 are Roos and will be leaving soon and the other 2 are Easter egger hens. So I do have a small flock and would like to add some more hens and I really do like the process of having a broody hen and her hatching the eggs. Any ideas or advice would be great.
Thanks

 

[BlueBaby]

Have you asked in your Texas states thread here at BYC? Maybe someone near you might have some available.

 

[shishimarie]

Didn’t think of that. Just thought to have some eggs shipped to me. I’ll post there too. Thanks for the tip

 

[sylviethecochin]

I've only ordered eggs online twice. So that's a warning. But I have done a lot of research for my window-shopping needs, and have come to the following conclusions:

On average, you pay five or so dollars for a hatching egg, including shipping. Assume a 50% hatch. Assume a 50% ration of male-female. You just paid $16 for every pullet chick. For that price, I would buy really nice birds, not hatchery-quality.

Pick a breed. Then order eggs from a breeder.

You can look on the "hatching eggs" section on BYC. However, I find that the selection is a bit limited and it's hard to find specific breeds unless you watch the 24-hour auction thread like a hawk.

The simplest way to track down breeders is probably to get on Ebay. Find someone who sells what you want, within a few states of what you want and only take the ones with good ratings. A lot of good ratings. You want someone who's been at this for a while. Remember that ebay rating systems are skewed, so a 96% is probably very like a 6/10 anywhere else.

Now, track down their website. They should have the name of their farm on the bottom of the page somewhere, and you can look it up. If they don't have a page on Facebook or something, I assume it's a scam. Perhaps that's not fair. But I've heard a few too many stories about Ebay to be anything but very cautious.

Ask any questions about their stock. If they're serious about this, they'll answer them readily. If they don't answer, I assume they don't care about me, or don't know.

Hope this helps.