Terrible experience with Metzer Farms for when ordering incubation duck eggs.

[realdealreview]

We had less than 50% fertility rate after 14 day candling from Metzer Farms. We have hatched chicken eggs, bearded dragons, ducklings.. you name it, we have successfully incubated and raised young from eggs for years. Ordering from Metzer was the worst experience ever. Poor fertility rates.. could have been a fluke. Poor customer service.. Maybe he was having a bad day when he wrote the insulting message back assuming I must know nothing about hatching an egg.
Anyone know a smaller breeder that ships fertile duck hatching eggs closer to the east coast?

 

[MissusDee]

Sorry you had such a bad experience. Mailed eggs seem to have a lower hatch rate anyway. I know I have tried just getting them off of ebay, the membrane often detaches or whatever. 50% doesn't seem that bad, though I have never ordered eggs from Metzers. Have you ordered eggs and tried to hatch from anyone else before?

 

[realdealreview]

I've ordered from several smaller pure breeders for show stock with good success. They were claiming 93% and 84% fertility rates for these particular breeds which is why I hoped for the higher success rate. It was just disappointing for my students, which is what I was trying to avoid. Now the window of opportunity for learning is closed for this project timeline. Sigh. But next time I hope to find a better breeder stock for ducks. I have great suppliers for chickens of all sorts.. Just having trouble finding hatching eggs for duck breeds.