Shipped Eggs

[LarryBirds]

I was thinking about buying some fertilized eggs but want to know how the process goes. How do they determine if the egg is fertile? Do they wait like 2 weeks and put a flashlight on them? Is there a guarantee? Do they package them with a ton of padding to ensure they dont break?

 

[hammyanne]

Hi! I'm new to shipped eggs but just received my first 2 dozen last week. The breeder I purchased from doesn't necessarily guarantee fertility but confirms details about the breeding pen set up (i.e. 2 males in one pen with x # of females). I think she spot tests fertility, but I don't think she candles or runs any tests for my specific order.

She had some amazing packaging: 3" foam with egg-shaped cutouts for the eggs to fit snugly into, and top and bottom fittings that sandwich the eggs in place. I opted for USPS (she had other carrier options) and the eggs took about 4 days to get from Florida to upstate NY. I wish I had opted for quicker shipment as the longer transit time did affect my incubation plan. Good luck!

 

[MountainWoman73]

You can't tell if an egg is fertilized until you incubate it, so no, there's no guarantee. The seller might hatch some of their own eggs, or run a fertility test in their incubator to get an idea of how many are fertile. (Incubate a few for 3 days, then crack them and see how many embryos started). Shipped eggs are often harder to hatch even if they are fertile, so be prepared for 50% or worse hatch rates. And eggs should be a maximum of 8-10 days old when you set them, so make sure whoever is shipping them sends them within a couple days of being laid, so they are no older than a week or so when they get to you.

 

[MountainWoman73]

When I got shipped eggs, they were packaged like this. I was very happy with the shipping and packaging. None broke. But I still only got 4 of them to hatch.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Typically they test fertility by cracking open a test group and looking for the “bullseye” or by incubating a batch themselves. Hatch rates are a crap shoot with shipped eggs and most sellers do not guarantee any will hatch because the shipping process is rough and often results in detached air cells and sometimes cracked, scrambled eggs. That and they have no control of a buyer’s incubator/settings/handling etc. No amount of padding will prevent the liquid insides from getting tossed about, it just prevents the shells from cracking. Always check the seller’s policy before buying and look at reviews from other buyers!

I’ve bought 3 batches of eggs off eBay, fertility was decent but many eggs were too damaged to make it beyond day 5 and some that did develop all the way did not hatch. I got 2/16, 7/13, and 3/10. The batch of eggs that traveled only 1 state away and cost the least had the best hatch rate.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Hopefully your breeder does periodic fertility testing or hatches their own eggs enough to know if they have issues, fertility is measured as a percentage so you can’t use it to say x or y egg is definitively fertile, only out of ten eggs 8 should be fertile if 80% fertility, but you also get variation within batches too, you could have only six or all ten.

Shipping is a gamble, but sometimes the only way to get a species or genetics or breed you are interested in, plan for a disaster but also be ready if everything goes great. I’ve ordered 40 eggs and got 10 viable chicks and also ordered 24 eggs and got 24 chicks (they sent extra eggs in that batch), and it was a little bit of a scramble to house that many chicks when I was expecting a dozen. Besides lower hatch rates expect mutant and deformed chicks like wry neck or scissor beak, every shipped hatch has had a mutant or three while home grown hatches rarely do.

I have discovered I have a quail addiction but no risk of a gambling addiction, even be it shipped eggs! The more anticipated or expensive the eggs, the worse your hatch rates (Murphy’s law!).