Thoughts on Shipped Eggs?

[The Monkey Mama]

I'm curious to hear from others who have incubated eggs they had shipped.

I've had some great hatches from eBay eggs and some terrible hatches.

Right now I have two incubators full of eggs and I candled today. All these eggs were shipped from different eBay sellers and all of them have been cared for the same way.

I have:

9 of 9 Ameraucanas developing well
10 of 10 White Leghorns developing well
7 of 18 Buff Orpingtons developing well [11 candled clear]
6 of 18 Silkies developing well [10 candled clear, 2 candled with a blood ring]]
2 of 12 Welsummers developing well [9 candled clear, 1 candled with a blood ring]
1 of 12 Rhode Island Reds developing [4 eggs *rotted*w/in days and the rest candled clear]
0 of 9 Polish eggs developing [all candled clear]

What accounts for such a wide variety in results [in the same incubator, same temps, same humidity, same number of times turning each day - 3+ ]?

Is this something I am doing wrong, or is it a result of mail handling, or have I been sold infertile eggs by some folks?

I've already left positive feedback for these sellers, so I'm not looking to slam anyone or blame anyone, I'm just curious what causes such a huge variety of results.

Any thoughts? What kind of results have you gotten with shipped eggs?

Kelly

 

[Henrietta23]

My experience:
8 eggs shipped from CA to CT in 24 hours in February. 4 out of 8 hatched. 3 survived.
8 eggs hand delivered in April or May. 4 hatched, 3 survived. I have no idea what that all means. Same incubator used, with me monitoring it.

 

[ginbart]

Don't ask baldie.

But I'll tell you about mine.

# 1. Power went off for over 8 hours and heat went down to 80, 8 out of 24 hatched

# 2 Heat went up to 110 for God only knows how long, 10 out of 24 hatched

# 3 Everything went right and I got 6 out of 12.

I'm going to try and hatch my own eggs. This morning when we ate our eggs only 3 out of 7 were fertile.

I'm sure when they sell you eggs they can't tell if they are fertile or not. I'm sure they do their best.

But they could get thrown out of a moving vehicle while being delivered. So many things could go wrong when the PO has them.

I think I will take my chances with my own.

 

[Msbear]

Crack open the clear ones and you can rule out fertility right away. There is a great sticky on how to tell which is which...and it is very easy....Keep us posted

 

[vfem]

YEah, all you gotta do is crack the clear ones to see if they are fertile... but some get shaken up a bit too much in shipping and may not be cracked, but can most likely be a wrecked a yolk. I would never expect a high success rating on a shipped egg. Its like gambling, sometimes you get lucky.

 

[CK Chickadilly]

~Bought eggs off ebay
~Fast shipping, postal worker admitted to dropping the box out of the bag when the bag came in for sorting....

~14 eggs received - none broken
~5 hatched (1 of those was like a premmie - had L shaped air sac - but healthy & doing great)
~4 were not fertilized
~2 blood rings
~3 quitters. 1 early, 1 fairly early & 1 mid term

I think I may buy eggs locally from farms who have the breeds I want or the Hatchery that is close enough to drive to.

To me is was a big waste of money to loose that many!

(edited to add) I guess I should have mentioned too that I had my own OE bantam eggs in the bator & had a 100% hatch rate!

 

[VettekLisa]

I've tried 3 sets of shipped eggs so far. The 4th set is in the incubator now.

Set 1 shipped from Virginia- 15 eggs shipped, 12 arrived uncracked
1 hatched, 1 died late day 18ish, the other 10 eggs were clear

Set 2 shipped from Oregon- 16 eggs arrived, none cracked,
5 hatched, 1 died late day 18ish, 1 died around day 14, 9 eggs were clear

Set 3 shipped from California- 18 eggs arrived, none cracked,
1 possible blood ring, the other 17 were completely clear

Set 4 from same California breeder- received 18 eggs, on day 4 in the incubator now.

 

[becky3086]

I believe if the eggs are clear on your first candling, they were probably not fertile to begin with.
I have never had a problem hatching my own and have almost never had infertile eggs from mine.
As for shipped eggs, out of 12 I hatched three, can't remember where they came from.
This time out of 16, 5 did not make it through several candlings and 10 hatched. I considered this pretty good.
I do try to pick sellers who are closer to me but sometimes I just want the eggs too bad to care, lol.
becky

 

[YeOleBroodie]

One thing you should ask before ordering eggs is:
How many hens to a roo, do they have?

If too many hens and only one roo. He may not be able to cover all the hens.
Also roos have favs. and will not fertilize others, he will see his favs. first leaving many unfertilized eggs for that days pick up.
So would be good to know the ratio of roo to hens.

My 2 cents, for whatever its worth.

 

[shelleyd2008]

The post office can be and usually is very brutal with packages marked 'fragile' and 'eggs'. I would say the majority of the problem would be that the eggs got scrambled from rough handling in shipping. If they are clear, you can crack the eggs to check for fertility, but it is very difficult to crack an egg that has been incubated without breaking the yolk. If you break the yolk, it is impossible to tell if it was fertile to begin with. Candle the eggs before you put them in the bator, and if the air sac is 'floating' as in moving around, or the insides look like they have bubbles in them, they are probably scrambled, and won't develop. I have had 4 different sets of quail eggs shipped so far. 2 from Alabama, one from Mississippi, and one from Alaska. The eggs from Alaska are in the bator as of today, so we will have to wait and see on those. The first two, one from AL and one from MS, had quite a few scrambled eggs when they got here. Out of the ones from AL, total of 18, there were only 7 that weren't scrambled, and out of the ones from MS, only 7 of 20 had any development, so they were probably scrambled as well. The other batch I got from the same seller in AL is on day 10, and all 13 of them are candling clear. None of them looked scrambled, because the air cell is stable. If they were scrambled, they weren't as badly as the first ones were. But the guy told me he didn't know how fertile they would be, and I didn't have to pay for those anyway, so no big loss.