Shipped egg deaths

[spowell]

Ok, I have 69 eggs in the bator. 9 were gotten locally, the rest I bought and were shipped. I did let them set for 24 hours before I put them in the incubator. The Japs have been in 10 days and the rest have been in about 7. 2 of the Japs were clear and the other 7 are growing great. The rest, I think I found 2 that might be growing. The rest were clear or quit.

I have left them in and will check again in a few days, but I saw no movement at ALL.
I have never ordered shipped eggs before, is this a problem with most. I keep wondering if I did something wrong, but the Japs seem to be doing fine (there are all wiggly when you shine the light on them).
Any input would be great. If you order shipped eggs please tell me about about your experience, especially if its good. I don't want to be discouraged if others have had good hatch rates It could very well be me and something that wasn't quiet right.


Temp 99.6
Humidity 50%
GQF 1202 bator
I open daily to add water.

 

[Impress]

Sadly, I see shipped eggs as a waste of money, I'd rather drive to pick eggs up then have them go through the mail. I never had success with them, was left with lone chicks many times out of a full incubator. I think the mail people scramble them.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

It depends on the mail system they travel through. Some conveyor belts have rollers out of line and scramble the inside of eggs no matter how they are packaged. That's one possibility the other being some employee's are conscientious and others play kick ball with anything labeled "fragile" is another possible reason. I had two shipments of eggs from same parent stock from the same source to two different post offices, one in NH other in VT about 40 minute drive apart. One batch of 15 had 9 develop, the other batch of 13 had 3 develop.

That being said, I'd not lose hope with a 7 day candling. Some shells are hard to see the fine detail of growth in 7 days. 10 or 12 day candling gives a better picture of what's going on and if in doubt wait until candling day 18 before lock down. Anything that is not a dark mass by then of a near grown chick is what doesn't have a chance to hatch.

 

[rarely bored]

My hatches which come from my hens have a very good hatch rate.
Shipping eggs tend to not be as good. In my two experiences I've had 8 out of 14 hatch and 3 out of 12 hatch. Will I do it again - most likely since I do not know of any local people who have the breed/color I want.
I am wondering if the summer hatches of shipped eggs is lower than the winter time shipments, since it seems, I'm reading of more disappointments on shipped eggs here now than I did last spring.

Something which I think is important, is to do a trial run with your incubator before forking over tons of money on shipped eggs. See if you can get the cheaper local eggs to hatch. I'm sure you can get rid of any extra chickens on craigslist.

Hope your good 'uns make it all the way!

 

[shanshan51]

I got 14 eggs in the mail a week ago. About half of them are good. The only thing I like from it is that they are rare breeds that I can not get locally. That is if the seller is telling the truth. I wont know until they hatch. But out of 14 about 7 are growing.

 

[Lacrystol]

Usually I can get at least half of my shipped eggs to hatch. But lately I have not had this luck. I just received 18 eggs yesterday and six were totally smashed and leaked onto the each other, the other had loose air cells. Loose air cells and scrambled eggs are a big problem with shipped eggs because the post office can't read the box when it says FRAGILE in huge letters.. I have giving up on getting shipped eggs and will only hatch out my own eggs. The risk is less and you have a bigger outcome.. last year I hatched out 95% of my own eggs.

 

[Time-Out]

I have a really nice postman here. I'm talking about the regular one, not the one that brings the parcels or special deliveries. So I ordered six eggs and had them shipped first class so he'd be the one to deliver them. When he came, he saw the chicks and I said the package was more hatching eggs. He seemed surprised that there was actually something fragile in a box marked fragile. I just hope he doesn't have a jolty walk

 

[spowell]

Do they xray the box?

 

[Time-Out]

I have serious doubts about regular mail getting x-rayed. It probably does coming into the country, but not from Mrs Smith in Town to Mr Boggs in Village. Not sure about interstate posting for you lot.

 

[instar8]

I bet Egghead is right...marking something 'fragile' is probably offensive to some people...like the 'baby on board' signs.

My first shipped eggs i got less than a third, the eggs came from two different states, and the percentage was about the same for both batches...i didn't have a good candler then, but alot of the eggs that didn't hatch that i opened showed some development.

My second batch, iin process, had air cells moving around like in a carpenters' level...so far they are all developing...strongly suggest you get a candler though, rotten eggs are a disaster, and the time i spent cleaning up dead eggs that went bad around two weeks may very well have messed up my hatch.