So disappointing...0% hatch

[cmom]

electric knife. I ship 2nd day and it usually costs between $15. and $20. +/- to ship depending on the destination and the amount of eggs.

 

[Zinjifrah]

There are more factors than egg age and fertility... there's also handling in transit - the postal service is NOT gentle with packages - and if, or how many times, the package got x-rayed in transit.

I actually have a batch of eggs in right now... shipped pretty much entirely across the country. Some of them were already old - as much as two weeks old. The seller sent me 30 instead of the 12 I'd ordered, because they just sent everything they had saved up. I agreed; 'may as well give them a try'. Of those thirty, 8 candled clear last night and were removed - day 6. They were, indeed, duds with no sign of development. 2 of those were the fresh eggs she marked to let me know which were best. 5 are pretty much guaranteed to be no good, but I had a fragment of a doubt, so I left them in. 17 had obvious and clear spiderwebs of veining, among them a bunch of the old eggs.

I do like to candle, primarily because I want to know SOMETHING is happening, but also to prevent the risk of a rotten egg exploding. I've had one egg so far that I'm pretty sure would have if it had stayed in until day 10, but not in this batch. None of the 8 cull eggs showed any signs of bacteria when opened.

I really like that foam packaging. None of mine have been shipped that way - this last batch weren't even upright, they were bubble-wrapped and laid on their sides.

 

[cmom]

Some of the boxes I have shipped were damaged when they reached their destination but no eggs broken.

 

[lazy gardener]

First incubation experience? New bator? Did you take the time to calibrate your thermometers and hygrometer, and run the bator for a few days to be sure the temp was stable before setting eggs?

I may be making a lot of assumptions here. But, if this is a first incubation experience with a new bator and with shipped eggs, and you did not calibrate thermometers to 100* in warm water using a good quality guaranteed medical grade thermometer as your standard to calibrate against, and you did not do the salt test to calibrate hygrometer, you have a lot of strikes against you. Having them sit for 3 days before setting was an other strike against a successful hatch. What did the air cells look like prior to setting them? What size were they? Saddles, rolling? What did you use for humidity and temp during your incubation?

Even if there was no development seen, that does not guarantee that the eggs were not fertile. They could have been overheated in transit, or scrambled. Or, even if there was a blastoderm, it could have broken down by day 21.

I suggest that you take the time to calibrate, run the bator for a few days, checking all areas of the bator for warm/cool spots, and do a test hatch using local eggs before ever purchasing shipped eggs.

Before setting eggs again, I suggest that you read "hatching eggs 101" in the learning center. There is a lot of good information there to help insure a successful hatch next time.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

...

I do like to candle, primarily because I want to know SOMETHING is happening, but also to prevent the risk of a rotten egg exploding. I've had one egg so far that I'm pretty sure would have if it had stayed in until day 10, but not in this batch. None of the 8 cull eggs showed any signs of bacteria when opened.

I really like that foam packaging. None of mine have been shipped that way - this last batch weren't even upright, they were bubble-wrapped and laid on their sides.

All leakers and stinkers get removed here. I haven't had any exploders. I did have one stinker explode when I got it to the compost pile.
This is how I ship eggs. It gets another foam pad on top and then bubble wrap and a stiff piece of cardboard. The NPIP report slip goes in the box and NPIP # is written on the box.

 

[drkimba]

All leakers and stinkers get removed here. I haven't had any exploders. I did have one stinker explode when I got it to the compost pile.
This is how I ship eggs. It gets another foam pad on top and then bubble wrap and a stiff piece of cardboard. The NPIP report slip goes in the box and NPIP # is written on the box.
View attachment 1466947

 

[drkimba]

Do you have eggs for sell? If so do you ship?