"Scrambled" in shipping??

[Garden Gal]

I'm in the process of hatching my second and third batch of eggs, so I'm still pretty new to this. On my first hatch of 24 eggs, 18 hatched successfully and are alive and well. The eggs were purchased off of ebay.

In my current two batches (in separate bators) I started with 20 eggs in one, and at the first candeling marked two as very questionable (one appeared infertile and one had a blood ring). By the second candling, I discarded seven eggs. The two I had initially questioned were definately bad, but then I had five which appeared to "start" but simply not progress.

In the second batch I started with 10 eggs. First candling, I marked two as probably infertile, but gave them until tonight. The comment I made on my chart after the first candeling was "all seem SLOW" - they just didn't look like my other eggs did at one week. Tonight, I discarded six eggs from that batch of 10. Two infertile, and the others, once again, appeared to have started something - but then petered out.

Both batches off eggs were ordered on ebay and all arrived in "apparently" good condition. However, BOTH boxes showed very obvious signs of rough handling during shipment - crushed corners, etc...

I'm assuming that the embryoes were damaged by the rough handling - even though some of them seemed to begin to develop but then gave up. Does this sound logical or am I missing something else?

Many thanks!

 

[Camelot Farms]

Sounds like shipping scrambled them!

Have had same thing here. I've found that eggs that travel solely by mailtruck seem to do better than eggs that are flown. So, I am trying to limit my purchases to within a couple hundred miles.

Just my thoughts...

 

[gumpsgirl]

More than likely it was the shipping and might be the heat as well.

Unfortunately, when you buy eggs that have been shipped, you never know what type of treatment they are going to get from the senders door to yours. It is always a gamble. Sometimes they do make it just fine, but the more you hatch shipped eggs, you will realize that the good hatches are always about a 50 / 50 ratio.

I wish your eggs would have turned out better for you. I know how disappointing that can be. I've been there done that many, many times.

 

[bantamsrus]

I too have the same problem--if they're fertile, they'll start to develop and then die, usually around the first week mark.

Except on the rare occasion--I only seem to manage ~40-60% hatch rate on shipped eggs (compared to 90%+ on my own or local pick-up). Unfortunately, I am having a hard time finding what I want locally around me in bantam cochins and golden pheasants, so--I have to have eggs shipped in and hope that maybe half will hatch........When I get home from work this morning I hope my pheasants will be starting to hatch (3/6 made it to the hatcher).

All I can say is--Good Luck!!!

 

[Garden Gal]

Thanks guys. I guess I was pretty lucky in my first hatch! I'll try to find local eggs from now on...