Shipped Eggs – A Hatching Guide & Instructions

First things first….

When you receive shipped eggs, the first thing you should do is remove all the eggs from the packaging, inspect them for any cracks or damage, and set them down in an egg carton or tray “pointy end down”.

For lighter colored eggs, I would recommend candling them, and making note of how the air sacs in each egg look. This can be very difficult, if not impossible to do with darker colored eggs, such as our Marans, darker Olive Eggers, and out Coturnix Eggs. If you have dark eggs, and it is too hard to candle them, it’s okay! Just skip this step.

Eggs should sit for around 24 hours after being delivered & unpackaged to allow the air sacs to heal. Shipping is VERY tough on eggs. They get tossed, dropped, jostled and thrown about for 2-4 days in a very busy environment. We always try to package our eggs to the best of our abilities to ensure they are shaken as little as possible.

When you let the eggs “rest” prior to incubating them, you allow the air bubbles that may have developed during shipping to settle, and the air sacs to (hopefully) re-attach back to the membrane of the shell. This is a crucial first step in incubating your shipped eggs.

Test…. test… test!

If you are new to hatching eggs, we highly recommend testing your incubator before using it every time you plug it in. Do not solely rely on the incubators internal temperature and hydrometer sensors. I have included links (at the bottom of this page) to a thermometer/hydrometer combo that I use in all of my hatches. You should always check to make sure your hydrometer is calibrated, and your incubator matches your secondary sensors. Even a few small degrees or percentages can cause havoc in a hatch! I also recommend purchasing a quality incubator. I started off with cheaper Styrofoam incubators and once I upgraded to cabinet incubators, I couldn’t believe how much better my hatch rates were. I personally recommend any Brinsea product – their Ovation series (while a bit pricey) are well worth it. GQF makes fantastic cabinet incubators but most folks will only hatch a small amount of eggs at a time. Another one I have heard wonderful things about is the Nurture Right 360 by Manna Pro. 

After the eggs have rested for 24 hours, and you have warmed up (AND TESTED!!!) your incubator to ensure the temperatures and humidity are correct, place your eggs inside your incubator pointy end down (if using an incubator with an egg tray), or gently on their sides (if you are using an incubator that pushes them around in a circle). If the eggs had detached air sacs/cells, I would recommend keeping the egg turner off while starting incubation, for an additional 48-72 hours.  If your incubator doesn’t have an egg turner, do not manually turn for 2-3 days. After 2-3 full days, you can candle again and see if there is any improvement in the eggs with detached cells.

Unfortunately, some eggs may arrive entirely scrambled inside. This happens when employees or equipment have shaken, dropped, or damaged the box too much. We really do try our best to package our eggs to limit how much force they take, but once a package leaves our farm, there is nothing we can do to ensure the folks who handle your package actually take care when in possession of it. If your box arrives to you completely trashed – I am talking corners smashed in – holes punched through – eggs leaking out of the box… STOP; take photos and I will help you file a claim for damaged goods. I will not file a claim for you – I explain more on my shipping policies page if you would like to know the reasons behind this – But I will 100% help you file a claim for mistreatment of your package. This very seldom happens but I can help if it does! The link to my policies is in the references section at the end of this page.

What can you expect?

Shipped Eggs are ALWAYS a gamble. I got my breeding stock started from shipped eggs, and there are times where I had fantastic success with close to 90% eggs hatching. And there are times where I have gotten entire shipments and didn’t hatch a single bird. It can be tough, and really frustrating at times.
You can expect an average of 40-50% hatch rate with shipped eggs. There are so many variables that can affect this rate from poor, or great shipping journeys, to how well the hens have eaten in a specific week, to how well your package has been treated by postal employees, to the weather and temperatures, how humid or dry the climate is, and many more factors. Purchasing shipped eggs is a risk, but if you want to get specific stock, certain colors, or different breeds it is a risk you need to be willing to take. 

Should I wash my eggs?

Nope! In fact, we recommend touching the eggs as little as possible, and only candling 1-2 times during incubation. Human hands have an astonishing amount of bacteria on them…  Yuck!! Always try to wash your hands, or use hand sanitizer before handing your incubating eggs.
One of the last thing a hen does before laying an egg is depositing the “Bloom”. The Bloom is a protective cuticle coating which protects the egg from bacteria that may otherwise penetrate it’s pores and cause the egg to go bad. If you wash, or get your eggs wet, it washes off this nearly perfect protective layer, leaving your eggs open to contamination.
We try to only ship the best eggs possible. Some dirt, or feces are acceptable to leave on while incubating eggs, but we never will ship heavily soiled or yolky eggs. If you have eggs from your flock that you are wishing to incubate, but they have some dirt or debris on them, we recommend taking a dry cloth and very gently scratching the debris off.

So… how long does this all take?

Chicken Eggs take 21 days on average to hatch. Some bantam eggs (including some of our Silkies) may hatch earlier than 21 days. On Average, if I hatch 100 Silkie eggs at a time, I get 8-11 chicks that hatch between day 19-20, and the rest hatching on day 21-22.  Jumbo Coturnix Quail eggs will take approximately 17-18 days, but chicks may arrive between days 16 and 20 – and standard Coturnix take an average of 16-17 days, but may hatch between days 15-19. Did you know most species of birds all have varying hatch times? Ducks, Geese, and Turkeys all take an average of 28 days to hatch!

I recommend candling your eggs before you incubate to check for damage to the air sac/cells, and to not candle again until you lock your eggs down. “Lockdown” is the term we use to describe the time when egg incubators have their settings optimized for hatching. When you lockdown your incubator, you will remove the eggs and candle for the last time. Remove any and all eggs that have died or have not developed. Remove and turn off your egg turners, and turn up the humidity.

I will link a good source for candling eggs and what to look for in the references below. Please keep in mind that Dark Olive Egger Eggs, most Marans eggs, and the darker/larger spotted Coturnix Eggs will be nearly impossible to candle like your typical light colored egg. I haven’t found an egg candler that can show me veins in these dark eggs so I use a different method. 

Marans/Dark Olive Egg Candling

Please note that I do not candle these breed of eggs except the day of lockdown. Eggs are either placed back in the incubator if they are viable, or discarded at that point.
On day 17-18 when you lockdown, you are looking for 1 of 2 things. If you shine a light on the eggs, you are looking for the majority of the egg to be totally dark. If the light is illuminating the egg and you can see light through most of the egg, it is a dud. If the light stops at the top inch, and is dark the rest of the way down, then that egg is most likely still viable.

Examples
I will try to get photos of my eggs to share as example in the near future, but right now all I have are example illustrations.
In this first illustration, we have a Dark Shelled egg that is viable, with a chick filling up the majority of the shell. This chick is most likely on day 17-18 of development. This is what you are looking for when you are candling a dark shelled egg on day 16-17-18.

This second illustration is what you can expect to see from a dark shelled egg on day 16-21 if the egg is NOT viable. Can you see light from the top to the bottom? If so, there is most likely no embryonic development in this egg, and if a Marans or Olive Egg looks like any of these examples below on lockdown, you are probably safe to discard it.

I also made an illustration to show what a light shelled egg should look like on lockdown. That illustration is below.