The Great Egg Shipping Experiment!

[ronott1]

I wish I could do better than 18%. That is the main reason I did the hatching and incubating, harder to pass disease. I have no adult chickens. I have only the chicks from what I hatched this year and I bought a pair of day old cream legbars, 10 crele OEGB's and one blue polish I bought as day olds from my neighbors. I have never bought shipped chicks, I would be a wreck waiting and wondering

. These have all been cream legbar and sulmtaler eggs that I can't get to hatch. My best hatch ever was from wisher1000's EE and BCM eggs. I have had good luck with hatching silkies. If I pay $12 for a dozen eggs they will hatch. If I pay $10 an egg.....nada.

I have a pair of cream legbars that hatched Tuesday. 2/15 eggs. Earlier this spring I lost a whole incubator full of only cream legbars and sulmtalers because of an extended power outage from a tornado and had one (1) cream legbar hatch out of 42 eggs.

I am setting my very last batch of eggs today. Again, cream legbar, sulmtaler, and this time I am putting silkie eggs in there too. Maybe the silkies will talk to the others and tell them that it is ok to hatch!

It takes practice with your incubator to get it all worked out. On shipped eggs I am getting close to 50%. The lowest was 20% and the highest was 90% this year. Last year was my first year incubating and I did not do as well. I did a huge staggered hatch that went from February to July. I stopped incubating for two weeks and started up again.

Practice on the silkie eggs or Trader Joes eggs. The Store eggs are about $4.00 per dozen so no pressure!

 

[Loghousemom]

Here is the surprising thing... these eggs arrived in pristine condition. There were 12. I pulled 9 clear at day 7! I go into lockdown on Tuesday and I am pretty sure there are only 2 good ones in there.

I had one hatch. . Poor little alien baby. (These were naked necks). I had pulled 9 and they were all scrambled upon eggtopsy. One quit around day 10 I think (I left it in till lockdown but it was definately not alive any longer. The one pipped yesterday and finally hatched today. The other, well, I checked on it today after the hatched one was all fluffed up. It was not internally pipped, no movement. I decided the hatch is done and eggtopsied that one too. I really can't tell which day it died, but sometime after lockdown. I had a couple in my last hatch that did up that too, seemed good at lockdown but then never hatched. Is that pretty typical with incubation?

 

[pickitfarm]

Getting ready for our second hatching attempt. The last time we had 8 Rhodebar chicks hatch. None of the Buff Orpingtons that had been shipped made it. (All were scrambled.- Ugh!) This time we have 10 Swedish Flower and 12 Blue Splash Ameraucana eggs. They will be set tomorrow. Only the Swedish Flower were shipped but are in much better shape than the Orps were. Though they were packaged well two did break in transit. Hopefully we will get some of each this time around. The Rhodebar chicks that were hatched are all doing well and are working on their third week. They are growing like weeds.

 

[MeanV2]

Ok! I had a lady that ships a bunch of eggs tell me that eggs do not have to breathe until they are incubated.

True? or False?

Dan

 

[Wisher1000]

Hmmmm, BREATHE, no, take in air to replace lost moisture, yes. Is that breathing? I don't think so, but they can't be denied free air exchange.

Warning - The opinions expressed here are those of Wisher1000 and may not represent the views of actual knowledgable people.

 

[MeanV2]

Hmmmm, BREATHE, no, take in air to replace lost moisture, yes. Is that breathing? I don't think so, but they can't be denied free air exchange.

Warning - The opinions expressed here are those of Wisher1000 and may not represent the views of actual knowledgable people.

They were wrapped tight in a self sticking bubble wrap all the way around. I doubt there was much if any air exchange. Out of 16 eggs I candled and pulled any clears left and put the rest in lock down, 7 eggs out of the 16 showed any signs of development and went into lock down. I had 9 Marans eggs from same shipper and did not even attempt to candle them. I just put them all in lock down.

Dan

 

[Wisher1000]

I always turn the bubbles toward (up against) the egg so that there are spaces between. Still, I think it would be hard to seal them air tight with the other side.

 

[chickenpooplady]

Wisher, yesterday was day 7 and I candled! 12 out of 14 were developing!!! I even saw movement in a few!

I took out the two clears and cracked them open. One was scrambled from shipping and the other was a very early death.

 

[Wisher1000]

That's great! Keep us posted!

 

[chickadoodles]

I think I will be going to the auctions to try to find some grown birds!