No Hatch

[muddyriverdogz]

I got a dozen eggs on E-Bay and broke them all open today (Day 15) all are dead.Is there a way to tell if an egg iss fertile?These are brown eggs.Just got 14 more in the mail today.

 

[kooltex]

Not without cracking them open, the fertile ones have a round spot on the yolk. Incubate them and candle them on day 10, you will see which ones are developing.

this one is fertile, but can't be incubated now hehe

 

[muddyriverdogz]

Thanks for the info.Well here i go again with 14 more this is getting expensive.

 

[kooltex]

Keep trying, you'll get it. Shipped eggs can get expensive. Plus they may have been fertile, just rough handling by the po can damage them, even if they aren't broken. I usually get a 50% hatch, sometimes less, on shipped eggs for that reason.

 

[AHappychick]

i found that it is very hard to tell if an agg is fertile after incubating because the egg getts more runny with the heat and all and it is hard to see the bullseye as when you crack open an unincubated fertile egg.

Can you get any eggs locally that are fertile? you could also try a reputable byc member who may live close to you where you could purchase fertile egs, or have them shipped from a closer distance. There are also some bad sellers on e-bay so you may have gotten one of those, thera re many good ones there as well (me included) but you might have a better and cheaper time here at byc

good luck

 

[Spinster_Sister]

If you don't mind the breed of hen/rooster you'll get, you can always buy some fertile eggs at your local health food store (Whole Foods, Trader Joes, etc)...I did and although I don't think they made it, out of dozen I have 5 of them with some sort of developement. I am holding out for one that maybe still alive.....we'll see!

 

[kooltex]

Yeah and getting farmers market eggs is cheap, and good "test" eggs so you can get to know your "bator", what works and what doesn't.

 

[dragonchick]

Quote:
I can get free range eggs from the store here but free range doesn't mean there is a rooster present. Do the farms that sell the eggs not cull the cockerels out in favor of the pullets? What are the chances they would be fertile

 

[Spinster_Sister]

Actually at those stores (Whole Foods, Trader Joes) they do sell fertile eggs. The real pinch is trying to find ones that are fresh enough for incubating. While at Whole Foods, I had to dig through to the back of the case to find eggs that were about 4 days fresh. I have heard that free range eggs may mean that the hens may have had access to a rooster, but I really can't confirm that. The brown fertile Whole Foods eggs are produced by Chino Valley Ranchers and they emailed me saying that the brown eggs are from Isa Brown hens.

I haven't tried incubating Free Range eggs, I only tried the Fertile Eggs..

 

[lngrid]

I'm not trying to spark a controversy here, but "free-range" and "cage-free" don't mean what a lot of people think they mean. Maybe you guys already know this, but for those who don't, here goes:

Cage-Free simply means they aren't kept in cages. Often they're crowded into vast open rooms -- housed on the floor and on layers of "shelves." They don't even have the access to the outdoors that the "free-rangers" have.

Free-range only means they have government-certified access to the outdoors. They could be kept indoors with a door that is only open a few minutes a day and this qualifies as "free-range." Birds who are too crowded or terrified to use the access are still certified as "free-range." There is no standard for quality of the outdoor environment or how much space per bird must be available. A few square yards of concrete or asphalt would qualify.

I haven't read anything related to these types of housing conditions that requires a rooster to be present.

I'm not bashing the poultry industry here, or those who support it. It's just that at this time these terms can mislead consumers and people should know the truth behind what they pay for.