Ordering eggs

[Quiltinkaycee17]

Hi, I recently ordered 6 eggs to hatch in a Brinsea mini incubator. Of the six eggs, two hatched on time. The 21stday was June 30th. Two hatched on time and four did not. Today I checked the unhatched eggs. Three looked like they were unfertilzed or did not develop. One chick looked almost fully developed but for whatever reason was unable to hatch. My question is, does a seller of eggs normally guarantee a % of a hatch. This dealer said two of six is a great hatch and had the other hatched I would have had 50% hatch. Would like to hear your opinions. I chose this person because by reviews, the hatches were nearly 100%.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Unfortunately shipped eggs can get messed up during the shipping. No egg seller can guarantee they will hatch due to there being too many factors that can affect the hatch rate. I have gotten 100%, and I have gotten 0%. Buying hatching eggs is always a gamble.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Same here. If I get 50%, I consider that an excellent hatch. I always buy at least 4x the number of birds I want, hoping for (but not expecting) 50% to hatch and then 50% of those to be female. Like Old Hens, I've had some 100% and some 0%, and that's just the gamble with shipped eggs. Even if fertility is 100%, the integrity of the egg, including the membranes, yolk, and air sac can be damaged in ways you may not be able to see. Along the same lines, I set some of my own eggs at the same time as the shipped eggs I have going right now and I pulled one for nondevelopment even though I have 8 cockerels running with 10 hens (yes, I'm out of balance right now but have a bunch of pullets approaching maturity). That's just an example that you really can't guarantee 100% fertility, shipped or not, though a good seller will be doing periodic fertility checks.

 

[Vickity907]

I ordered eggs from a major hatchery down in the lower 48. ( I live in Alaska ) I ordered 40 eggs. They sent 2 extra making 42 altogether. I checked the eggs every 7 days and looked for signs of life. By the time they hatched I had only 20 hatch and of that only 17 survived the 1st month. Buying from a hatchery is great when you want different chickens but there's no guarantee they will survive shipping. Good LUCK!

 

[RubyNala97]

I think everyone’s answers were perfect. Shipping is a gamble. I’ve had the same 100%-0% hatch. Just wanted to add that with shipped eggs they can appear infertile when in fact they are fertile they are just “non-viable”. Meaning that whatever the egg went through from the time it left the seller until the time it made it in your incubator was to much cellular damage for it to develop even though it was fertilized. Not saying that an egg can’t be infertile, as a previous poster mentioned even with lots of roosters an egg can slip through unfertilized but if someone is selling eggs for hatching then most of their eggs will be fertile but not all will develop after shipping.