Shipping Eggs Settling

How long do you usually let shipped eggs sit for?

  • No time at all- I pop them in the incubator right away!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • A couple hours

    Votes: 1 14.3%
  • 6-12 hours

    Votes: 1 14.3%
  • 12-24 hours

    Votes: 5 71.4%
  • 24+ hours

    Votes: 1 14.3%

  • Total voters
    7

FFAChickenFan

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Oh geez. It looks like I've mucked things up already.

I recently ordered some Blue Ameraucana eggs off of BYC from a nearby state and after barely 2 days of shipping (a little less than that) I found them on my front door- What luck!
I had everything ready for them and quickly put all nine of them into their incubator- pointed end down.

However, now that I'm reading a little more into the hatching process, I'm hearing that you are supposed to let shipped eggs sit for 12-24 hours before you put them in the incubator. I only let them sit for 2 hours on my doorstep before I came home and put them in the bator. What a huge oversight! I thought I'd read everything I possibly could on hatching eggs, but somehow I'd missed this.

I haven't candled them yet to look for a detached air sac because I'm afraid to move them (other than my automatic turner). So I have no idea what the status of that is.

Will they still hatch? Is there anything I can do now to help save my babies chances of hatching?

Thanks Guys!


 
Last edited:
They'll likely be okay. I got 18 shipped eggs and the air cells were awful. I let the eggs sit, but decided that the rack tips back and forth so gently that the cells wouldn't be jarred and wouldn't travel much like they would if they were on their sides and being hand-turned. So after only about 8 hours, I put them in the incubator. Half the eggs hatched. Most of the other half just never developed at all--not even a hint of veining when I opened them, so I know they didn't die early on. I had a few that shrink-wrapped at about day 18 because I let the humidity drop too much for too long. I learned that awful lesson the hard way and will never let that happen again! But of all the ones that hatched, they did so just fine--even the ones with horrible, giant, saddle-shaped air cells!

When I don't want to disturb my eggs but I want to see what's going on inside, I put my candler flashlight on top of the eggs as they sit in the rack (I don't take the incubator lid all the way off, just reach inside so I can do it quickly and get them covered again). I can quickly get a good idea of what's going on inside as far as air cells, veining, and/or movement that way.
 
4 hours is usually ok. if the box was damaged or the eggs where broken then I would wait a few more. The main thing with eggs is to leave the turner off a few days . They can go a week without being turned. I normally just wait 3 days but if they had a rough ride I give them another day or two.
remember shipped eggs . It usually takes a few days to collect the amount you got. plus the shipping time and settling time.
 

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