My frustration with shipped eggs!!

[Chicky Tocks]

I'm incubating my first ever order of shipped eggs. French BCM eggs. The person I bought these from has a decent rep for fertile eggs. I'm only worried because these eggs are different from any other egg I've hatched. They're dark, dark and I can't see into them, and they feel rough to the touch..I hope they're not porous! But yeah, they're so dark that I can't satisfy myself that they're veining...maybe in a few more days. I've also tossed in 3 of my own eggs from my EE roo and buff orpingtons to check my own fertility rates.

If I'm disappointed, and oh goodness I HOPE AND PRAY that I'm not cause I really, really, really have waited a long time for these BCM's,

then I'll just have to consider myself very lucky that I have so many wonderful BYC friends who live close enough to me to get my hatching fix from.

 

[walkswithdog]

Shipped eggs are always going to be a gamble. I've had GREAT hatches from shipped eggs and dud hatches, all of them scrambled. I've generally had 60% or better, with some busts and some nearly 100%.

When there isn't a breeder near you, you take your chances.

Hatchery birds are fine, if you want and need hatchery quality. When you want heritage or show quality you don't buy from a hatchery.

Then you take your chances on shipped eggs. I always put some of my own in so I know whether it was the incubation at the time or not. That helps.

When I can I drive to get eggs. It does work some of the time. It does take practice. It will work some of the time and fail some of the time. Shipped eggs and a novice hatcher are going to be a bigger problem than shipped eggs and an experienced hatcher.

You try, you live, you learn. Risk and reward tend to go hand in hand.

If you don't try you never learn and you never succeed.

 

[new2chix]

There are a few things you can do to increase your odds - the first which is to buy from somebody who has a good reputation. If you buy from people here on BYC, follow their selling threads long enough to see what others have to say about their experience with the person's shipped eggs with regard to how well they arrive / hatch rate / fertility rate / quality. The second most important thing seems to have been to allow enough time to rest after unpacking the eggs - at least 24 hours, pointy end down, undisturbed.

 

[dancingbear]

I've been having ups and downs with shipped eggs as well, and here's what advice I have, for what it's worth.

This first thing won't help before you start the eggs, but later, if you have a bunch of clears to remove, it could help tell you what happened.
Learn to tell what fertile germinal discs and infertile germinal discs look like. Here's help: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16008

If your eggs candle clear at 10 days, you can open them, (carefully, you need the yolk as intact as possible) and examine the germinal disc. If it's only a tiny white speck, it wasn't fertile. If it has a bull's eye, it was fertile. I have 4 shipped Dorking eggs in the bator now, due to hatch very late today, or maybe tomorrow. I started with 15. There were 3 early deaths, (bloodrings) the other 8 were infertile. I opened them and looked. Tiny specks. Not one bull's eye. Over half, not even fertile. (This was not a BYC'er, BTW)

For my own hens' eggs, to check fertility, I look at the germinal disc every time I open an egg to eat. It's a rare day that I don't use some eggs, so I check a few every day. That way I always know about what the fertility rate is. I don't have to incubate the eggs to find out. I already know it's very high.

If you've had a high rate of infertile eggs, badly packed eggs, or some other problem with a seller, don't buy from them again. I read fairly often, "I've gotten eggs from this seller over and over and they never hatch...." Why would you keep buying from them?

Always include some eggs (at least 3, 6 is better) of known fertility to the shipped eggs/eggs from an unfamiliar seller. Mark them well. If possible, use a variety that will be a different color or type. Then, you'll know if at least part of the problem is your 'bator. If the known fertiles hatch ok, and the others don't, you'll know it's the eggs.

 

[IggiMom]

Well, here is an update, same topic.

I just did an Eggtopsy on the remaining Silkie eggs.

They were all perfect, only dead.

Completely developed.

So that is certainly no the fault of the seller or the USPS. It is me or the incubator.

It is not because they were shipped.

My goodness I cannot imagine the bad luck of the Waibel Zoo, gosh. Sending sympathy.

It has to be possible to hatch eggs in an incubator, or all those chicks on my porch from Estes are a figment of my imagination. SO by golly I CAN get this right, somehow.

Dancing Bear, I think your advice is good.

Catherine

 

[insiderart]

Quote:
This is what I needed to know. Oh I can grow eggs just fine. I can incubate the heck out of eggs! Early on the issue was me moving them to a hatcher whose temp it turned out was too cool. If the hatcher is too cool the chicks die in the egg, never pip, sometimes they pip internally and you hear peeping.. but then... death... (ask me how I know...

)

Now I'm locking down the incubator in which the eggs grow, starting out during lockdown with a humidity of 50-60% keeping it about 60 ish after pipping. I incubate in egg cartons, and I hatch in egg cartons. I really like it. The good point is if you have a late pipper (say it pips after you have opened the incubator to remove the chicks) you can moisten the paper carton around the egg. Seems to help them make it out just fine. So, so far so good, hopefully I have now corrected my hatching issue.

This time however, I am wondering if there were fertility issues. I mean come on! 17 eggs out of 18 clear? I always expect to lose about 40% of the shipped eggs due to lack of development (hey sometimes I've had nearly 100% development from shipped eggs), but I do not expect to lose over 90% to clears. So I need to learn the fertility check.

I liked getting eggs from local folks, and my eggs from rbamterry were a breath of fresh air. So nice to see live chicks! But I want a few things I haven't seen locally so I'm in for shipping.

 

[kycowgirl78]

I just received my first shipments of shipped eggs in the past month. I ended up getting from 4 different people, all BYCers. One set is due to hatch Wed. and seem to have candled well so we'll see what happens on ship day. However, another box I received seem to either been scrambled in the mail or aren't fertile, couldn't tell which but they candled clear. Not real happy about that since I paid the most for that particular box. Also, each box I received had at least one broken except for my last box that was packed with air pocket bags. I had one box with 4 broken eggs and the box had Fragile--EGGS written all over it. Amazing how the usps can still smash em up.

 

[calgal98]

Good grief people....eggs are FRAGILE. You can't really blame the USPS for whats going on to such delicate stuff. IF we receive eggs that have made it as far as our home, there is still the handling of those eggs to consider from the 1) seller, 2) USPS, 3) Our handling of the eggs that have been sent, shipped and received. Its a wonder that ANYONE gets chicks from this. All that said, we DO have successes. I'm on my first hatch. I know, I'm too new to make any statements about success. I have however, learned a great deal from incubating these eggs. I now know what to look for and when to trust my instincts as to unsuccessful eggs. I knew going in to this that it really is a crap-shoot as to whether or not any would hatch. I love watching the process no matter the outcome so this is a good thing for me. I've already pretty much written off the eggs so any hatch is a positive as far as I'm concerned. We will see how I feel after this weekend when I'm supposed to see the first hatched chicks!! I may not be so pragmatic...

Best wishes for our continuing learning and success with our hatching and raising chickens!! You can throw your rotten eggs at me now!! LOL

 

[insiderart]

It's fairly easy to tell if it was the PO. If your eggs were well packed, PO scrambled eggs have loose aircells. I'm well aware... of PO symptoms.

It's on the seller when they are not packed well. There is no excuse for broken eggs. And in my experience when you have a lot of broken eggs you will get a lot of clears, you will also see a lot of loose aircells. That's on the seller for packaging.

It's also on the seller if they aren't fertile at all. And I'm thankful for the link to Speck's fertile egg tutorial. I'll use that in the future, will probably save me a lot of headache.

I've had about 10 shipments of hatching eggs now. A couple of issues with the PO keeping them in transit for 7 days.. 3 day priority mail.. yeah right.

I've had great experience with most BYC sellers. Conscientious sellers with great packing skills. I've even had good development from a few ebay sellers (that I later killed in the "Hatcher of Dooooom!"). So it's hit or miss. But definitely frustrating enough when you have to throw away over 2 dozen eggs because they didn't develop at all.

Believe me I've learned a lot! A LOT!! But then I'm scientist by training so it's all good. I like to learn things. Losing eggs that developed to day 18 is the most heart breaking, you know you killed them then. It's all on you.

I like it though. So after a while I'm sure I'll buy some more and keep trying.

That being said I have one incubator full ( I'll lose a lot in it, I candled and there are so many loose aircells and clears in there, but the eggs were a scrambled mess when they arrived). And a hatch due off on the 12th. So I'm crossing my fingers for a few more babies to make it out! Hopefully I'm getting better at it anyway.

 

[IggiMom]

The link to Speck tutorial? Could you give it again? I have hunted and I cannot find it, probably should go to bed.

Thanks.

Catherine