Shipped eggs--are they worth it?

[SharW75]

I have been wanting to order some hatching eggs in a couple peafowl colors that I don't currently have in my flock. I've had decent success in the past with shipped chicken eggs, but I know peas are on a whole other level than chickens when it comes to incubating and hatching.

I have a pen of young birds with interesting genetics and I'm going to incubate some eggs from them as well, so my question is should I even bother with shipped eggs? Or should I just stick with my homebreds? I don't want to spend $150+ on dud eggs when I could be spending it in a better way.

 

[KsKingBee]

You don't sound like you like to gamble, and that is what shipping peaeggs is, a gamble. I sell eggs, cheaper than what you might expect, because it is a gamble on both the buyer and the seller.

I advertise four for $100 plus $25 postage and then ship six because I KNOW they are not going to all develop. Then again, some folks will get them all to hatch, which is a better hatch rate than I get myself with my own eggs.

My gamble is my reputation which is scrutinized by people that had the bad luck of the PO scrambling their eggs, leaving them to get overheated, or they just didn't have the stars aligned so the eggs would develop. When none of the eggs hatch, I send them another batch free, just because I can.

So for the buyer, the risks are; are the sellers reputable, did the eggs get wrapped well enough to survive the trip, did the box get dropped-kicked, etc.? And do I know what I am doing?

I say get some brooding chicken hens going and find some local eggs or just set the ones you collect.

If you don't want to throw money away and need that certain color, buy young birds when they are the least amount of money. Then you know what you are getting.