Shipped eggs super dissapointed!!

[AinaWGSD]

Shipping eggs and shipping live chicks are totally different ball games. It's like comparing basketball to lacrosse, or football and golf, it just isn't comparable at all.

Day old chicks are magnitudes less fragile than embryonic material, so sellers are able to have guaranteed live chick arrival policies. Which still doesn't mean 100% of shipped chicks will arrive alive, just that the seller will refund the cost of any that die during shipping.

Hatching eggs on the other hand always come with a disclaimer that hatch rates are not guaranteed. Every listing I've ever seen for hatching eggs includes a warning that you are risking 0 eggs hatching. That's just the risk you take when you order hatching eggs. The best a seller can do is guarantee that the eggs will arrive unbroken. Unless stated otherwise, any refunds or replacement for non-viable eggs is purely a charitable gesture and should be considered a favor and not expected.

 

[ABQ chicken keeper]

(1 cracked from freeze in shipment),

Humm!
Seems like a clue to me.
Many of us have used M&c with satisfactory results. IMO shipping eggs is always a gamble.

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

Shipping eggs and shipping live chicks are totally different ball games. It's like comparing basketball to lacrosse, or football and golf, it just isn't comparable at all.

Day old chicks are magnitudes less fragile than embryonic material, so sellers are able to have guaranteed live chick arrival policies. Which still doesn't mean 100% of shipped chicks will arrive alive, just that the seller will refund the cost of any that die during shipping.

Hatching eggs on the other hand always come with a disclaimer that hatch rates are not guaranteed. Every listing I've ever seen for hatching eggs includes a warning that you are risking 0 eggs hatching. That's just the risk you take when you order hatching eggs. The best a seller can do is guarantee that the eggs will arrive unbroken. Unless stated otherwise, any refunds or replacement for non-viable eggs is purely a charitable gesture and should be considered a favor and not expected.

Yeah
I prefer the idea of shipped eggs over shipped chicks, but to start my flock I did go with shipped chicks just so I'd have a guarantee.
Local stores didn't have any, unfortunately. Had to order directly from the hatchery.
I might try some hatching eggs soon.
It IS a lot of money and a gamble of 0% hatch, so I understand so many people getting frustrated when it doesn't work out.

 

[SourRoses]

Of course hatching eggs are a gamble. But the sellers are supposed to do everything they can to weigh the odds in your favor.
They should be fresh, clean, well packed, shipped quickly in a good climate window.
After that, the results are up to the stress in route, incubator conditions, and hatchers decisions (upright vs flat / turned / delayed turning, etc.)

So I don't like to jump on the bandwagon of "Of course you had a failure, what else did you expect?!"
Because a lot of people have reasonable success with shipped eggs. That means it's possible for things to go right. And the person who collects those eggs, packs them, and decides when to hand off for shipping has a huge role to play in their success.

When sellers offer replacements, it's not charity. It's reputation protection. And it's admitting the faint possibility they made a mistake somewhere in the process. Sellers can't and shouldn't guarantee results (live chicks) but at least a small percentage should begin development.
Personally, I've sometimes had very low hatch rates (15% last time) but I didn't blame the seller. They packed well, most of the eggs tried to develop, but so many of the air cells were free floating that the embryos could not survive. I was happy to get 3 chicks which is a good minimum number to raise together.

 

[Seaslug]

I think that this has been talked about in the shipped chicks threads -- one can't blame a hatchery for shipping at a "bad" climatic time for you because what is bad for you can be the most viable time for shipment for others.
Some storms or events that cause shipping delays can not be foreseen. But the person who orders has the responsibility to make sure that a shipment moves when it is most likely to be safe for the eggs/chicks. Too often this becomes an afterthought to cost and variety availability.
I am not saying that cost, variety, and availability is not important. But when posting reviews of hatcheries/breeders, to be truly helpful it is best to be honest about what we chose to value when making our purchase, IMO.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Of course hatching eggs are a gamble. But the sellers are supposed to do everything they can to weigh the odds in your favor.
They should be fresh, clean, well packed, shipped quickly in a good climate window.

I feel like this might be a bit of a difference between small scale breeders and large hatcheries. Murray McMurray has thousands, possibly millions of customers and it would be unreasonable to expect them to check the weather forecast at every delivery address they're shipping to. It's ultimately up to the buyer to look at the weather and decide if it's appropriate to have eggs shipped or if they should place the order for a shipping/delivery date with more favorable climate conditions. It's the gamblers responsibility to weigh the odds and decide if they're willing to risk the loss.

Sellers can't and shouldn't guarantee results (live chicks) but at least a small percentage should begin development.

Except a seller can do everything right and you can still have zero eggs hatch. And it's not fair to blame the seller for zero development due to something that causes failure to develop happening once the eggs are no longer in their possession. Op had a 58% development rate, more than half. One egg was broken (which they should have reported to the post office and hatchery upon arrival per the hatchery guarantee policy) and 4 showed no sign of development. 7 eggs showed development and 6 developed long enough for op to continue to lockdown).

That's better than the 43% development I had on hatching eggs that I drove to the breeder to pick up in person. That particular hatch had a 28% hatch rate, and I know for a fact that those eggs were handled properly from the time they left the seller to the time they hatched. I ended up with two $30 chicks. It was disappointing, but that's the risk I chose to take when I chose to buy hatching eggs over live chicks.

I think everyone understands ops disappointment. Even knowing that a 0% hatch is a possibility, everyone who chooses to ship hatching eggs hopes the odds land in their favor. What everyone responding with "that's the risk you take" is saying is that it's unfair to say the hatchery is no longer reputable or has "lost their cred" based on this one experience.

It's an unfortunate experience, for sure. Especially since op has had much better experiences with shipped eggs from other sellers. But nothing in the original post indicated that it was anything the hatchery did to cause the poor hatch rate. And since op has had better hatch rates with other shipped eggs it's not anything they did either that caused the poor hatch rate. It's just one of the unfortunate possible outcomes when you choose to buy hatching eggs.

 

[SourRoses]

I feel like this might be a bit of a difference between small scale breeders and large hatcheries. Murray McMurray has thousands, possibly millions of customers and it would be unreasonable to expect them to check the weather forecast at every delivery address they're shipping to.

Automation?
They have complex charts for when they expect X amount of chicks for different breeds.
They already plan around the weather to ship chicks.
Why would the software to analyze shipment weather be out of their reach?

* The most important weather is the origin city and the destination, at both places parcels are more likey to sit / transport slowly out of climate control. This is the weather most breeders focus on.

It's ultimately up to the buyer to look at the weather and decide if it's appropriate to have eggs shipped or if they should place the order for a shipping/delivery date with more favorable climate conditions.

BUT Buyers don't know WHEN their eggs will ship. Putting the order together is on the sellers terms.

Here's where I take exception to the "hatching eggs are a gamble" (you can see I agree with that otherwise)...
When sellers use the gamble as an excuse to do a poor job.
They are selling a chance, and they have the responsibility to do their best.
Best includes insulated shipping boxes. That's standard procedure for decent private breeders.
Why did the OP receive a frozen egg if the box was insulated as it should be?
Why would hatcheries get more of a pass for letting people down than the standard we hold private breeders to?

 

[LyleVertigo]

My first mistake starting out was trying to buy hatching eggs online. First batch were cream legbars from McMurray. Spending nearly a month monitoring the incubator just to have 1 successful hatch was a hit to my modivation.

As others said, there are so many factors that could result in a low hatch rate that it can't be blamed on the source, just for the simple fact that there is no way to know how the packages traveled from A to B.

I settled on buying live chicks instead and now that it's warming up inside I am trying to incubate eggs from my own chickens. Fresh, carefully handled and knowing they are fertile I have much more confidence that I will have much better results.