My Pet Chicken / Gabbard Farms Hatching Eggs BEWARE!!!

[jchod]

what ever you do, do not buy hatching eggs from them! we had received 15 eggs of 3 differant breeds. We purchased them for a local daycare that hatches eggs every year for 12 years, this year i said i would donate them so i could add some diversity to my flock. i had 6 easter egger, 6 barnevelder, and 3 sussex. out of all the eggs only 2 of the three sussex hatched. The other eggs we opened up to find out they werent even a fertile egg. They did not respond to any emails.. so i my opinion live chickens great luck eggs 2 out of 15 not good odds especially the price of them cost 80 bucks to get 2 chicks!!

 

[MrsBachbach]

I wish I did more research before buying hatching eggs from MPC, because I was not aware they came from Gabbard Farms. MPC has great reviews on live birds, because they don't come from Gabbard Farms, so don't hesitate to order those. I had an experience very similar to many angry backyarders. One person put it very simply, "Too many getting burned." Well, I got burned:

I orderred 24 assorted Orpington Hatching Eggs waiting almost 3 weeks past my ship date, the box smelled rotton, the eggs were ginormous, with rather large air cells (not fresh), the condition of the shells were poor, and the 4 Lavenders looked like they had already been incubating for a few days. But that's minor compared to what came next. I received 11 Blue, 7 Buff, 4 Lavender, and 2 Splash. It only took 1 day for them to arrive at my house from the time they shipped, so they weren't in transit long. I started incubating all of them regardless of how bad they looked. Well today is day 5, and only the Buffs are proceeding normally. That's when I decided to open up the shells and check. ALL 13 of the BLUE/SPLASH were not even fertile. I'm not talking about clear, I mean TRULY INFERTILE! The blastodiscs never had a run in with a Rooster. I could have saved myself a lot of money and just bought Buff Orpingtons, but then again the reason I bought this assortment was for the hopes of getting Black, Splash, and Blue.

I read these same exact complaints from others after I already had my eggs -same stuff in the old comments on Gabbard Farm's facebook page. When we buy shipping eggs we do gamble with the Post Office, but NOT with fertility. I'm not sure what is going on with Gabbard Farms or why MPC still deals with them. I have spent time defending other hatcheries on here, because I know chickens die, the Post Office can shake packages, etc. But when a hatchery has such a reputation for 0% hatch rates (but only on the rare breeds) something incompetent or dishonest is going on. Has anyone ever hatched a rare breed from Gabbard Farms? I could easily label an infertile egg with anything I wanted, cause it'll never hatch, so the customer would never know if it really was that rare Maran or more expensive Orpington. And then I could blame it on shipping, cause honestly, how many people know how to check for fertility, and if they do, do they have a good enough camera to take a detailed picture of the blastodisc to prove it? I read from someone how their rare egg actually did hatch as something else. Something just seems deceptive. I don't care how nice the owner appears to be, if they stink at the hatching egg business please don't buy from them -Capitalism at its best. Gabbard Farms has a lot of backyarders hard earned money in their pockets, and lets face it -they can easily get away with sending faulty eggs while blaming it on shipping.

Well, I'm glad I saw this post. Gabbard Farms is a stone throw from me and earlier this year I was looking for Wheaten Ameraucanas and sent an email off to them with a few questions to ensure the birds were not going to be EE's. I guess they didn't appreciate the questions, they never replied back. Now, I consider myself LUCKY that they never did reply. Otherwise, I likely would have purchased their terribly expensive eggs.

 

[stefan333]

Yay. It's always nice to hear good outcomes -one less person with a bad experience. I've come to a conclusion about Gabbard Farms. Granted I can't prove it, but everything points to dishonesty. I've ordered so many hatching eggs from various sources, and since my experience with Gabbard Farms I've been breeding and hatching my own chicks. I've learned that it's not that difficult to produce fertile eggs and healthy chicks. I've actually been quite shocked at how easy it is. And it's not that difficult to keep track of who's who if the breeds are separated into different coops. I don't give them extra vitamins or do anything special -only layer feed, occasional snacks from my garden, and they eat the weeds and grass in their run. The rooster does all the work, I gather the eggs, I incubate, and poof! Baby chicks. No one comes out with missing toes or deformed wings. It's also important to note that if my eggs weren't fertile it'd be pretty easy to know. All you have to do is crack the egg open and look at the "bullseye". They've got to know that the rare breed eggs aren't fertile. I really would love to hear from someone who's visited their farm. I've got a feeling that they don't even have some of the rare breeds they claim to have, and they're collecting infertile Buff Orpington eggs and labeling them as Blue.

 

[Sunflower3628ac]

Yay. It's always nice to hear good outcomes -one less person with a bad experience. I've come to a conclusion about Gabbard Farms. Granted I can't prove it, but everything points to dishonesty. I've ordered so many hatching eggs from various sources, and since my experience with Gabbard Farms I've been breeding and hatching my own chicks. I've learned that it's not that difficult to produce fertile eggs and healthy chicks. I've actually been quite shocked at how easy it is. And it's not that difficult to keep track of who's who if the breeds are separated into different coops. I don't give them extra vitamins or do anything special -only layer feed, occasional snacks from my garden, and they eat the weeds and grass in their run. The rooster does all the work, I gather the eggs, I incubate, and poof! Baby chicks. No one comes out with missing toes or deformed wings. It's also important to note that if my eggs weren't fertile it'd be pretty easy to know. All you have to do is crack the egg open and look at the "bullseye". They've got to know that the rare breed eggs aren't fertile. I really would love to hear from someone who's visited their farm. I've got a feeling that they don't even have some of the rare breeds they claim to have, and they're collecting infertile Buff Orpington eggs and labeling them as Blue.

10.5 weeks
This is one of the birds that hatched from a Gabbard Farm egg.
I was told by Mrs. Gabbard in an email that this is a blue EE chicken and that the Easter Egger does not always have muffs and beard. I thought that was the distinguishing markings. I guess I am confused.
7.5 weeks
I had 3 eggs hatch out of 9 purchased from Gabbard Farms. She did refund some money for the lack of a 50% hatch rate.
This was back in August. My three hatched on July 26, 2013. I tried to tell her that the other eggs were not fertile and she said that was not so. But you and I know what to look for. None of the other eggs had the "bulls-eye". This bird did hatch from a blue egg but I have no idea what two birds made this one. The other two are easter eggers since they have muffs and beards. I did get one rooster from the three hatching eggs.

 

[OrpObsessed]

Well Pooh. The eggs I have in the incubator are from MPC and they were shipped from Arkansas. Out of 8 eggs 6 are developing. They're Partridge Penedesencas. I wonder if they're from Gabbard farm?

 

[OrpObsessed]

Hopefully the majority hatch and mine will be a Gabbard Farms success story. I did some research, turns out they're from Gabbard farm.

 

[MIKEBD2]

I also had a bad experience with MPC. I ordered BCM eggs, two were rotten when they arrived, out of the other 10 not even one was viable. I ordered 24 from a post on BYC, and not only did I have a great success rate. I have some beautiful birds. All of the eggs from MPC & BYC were set on the same day and all in the same bator in the same conditions.
I learned my lesson.

 

[MIKEBD2]

I also had a bad experience with MPC. I ordered BCM eggs, two were rotten when they arrived, out of the other 10 not even one was viable. I ordered 24 from a post on BYC, and not only did I have a great success rate. I have some beautiful birds. All of the eggs from MPC & BYC were set on the same day and all in the same bator in the same conditions.
I learned my lesson.

 

[OrpObsessed]

I also had a bad experience with MPC.  I ordered BCM eggs, two were rotten when they arrived, out of the other 10 not even one was viable.  I ordered 24 from a post on BYC, and not only did I have a great success rate. I have some beautiful birds.  All of the eggs from MPC & BYC were set on the same day and all in the same bator in the same conditions. 
I learned my lesson. 

Did u contact them about it? What a bummer

 

[MIKEBD2]

I did, they refunded money for the two that was rotten and popped. By said their were two many variables to guarantee the hatch. I wasn't expecting any money back at all, just wanted them to know that the rooster didn't appear to be doing his job.

The funny thing is, the ones that were no good were the prettiest, darkest eggs I have ever seen. The ones that hatched were the ones I was questioning. Out of the 18 I purchased on BYC, I had 13 hatch and doing great. The other ones started developing but something happened to them and they died in the shell. I ended up with 11 Black and Copper Marans, and what appears to be 2 Blue Laced and Copper Marans.
These are the blue ones