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[marylockett]

I see on ebay that you can buy eggs to hatch yourself -how long can they be away from mother hen to new hen and still hatch? do they stay fertile for very long? I am a bit confused by whole concept

[Tweety]

Hi, have a look in the Hatching and Raising Chicks section on the forum, which is where I started when thinking about hatching. I think that eggs can remain fertile for up to 3 weeks, although the chances of a successful hatch diminish with time. Delivery in the post can also affect hatching and it is better to collect eggs for hatching personally if you can.

I bought some eggs off eBay, and hatched them in an incubator -7 out of 14 hatched successfully.

[Duckmomma]

Hi

I think a lot can depend on how your post office treats the eggs as well as the honesty of the seller.

Always check their feed back, I made the mistake of ordering some feed from a seller which I neded urgently, when I checked her feedback after the purchase (yeah stupid I know but I ordered in a panic due to the feed I had getting contaminated) I started to worry, her feedback had a lot of red and her replies to some of it was almost threatening!

Well it took her almost a week before she even sent it out, in spite of me informing her how urgent it was.

I have had lots of eggs from E.bay and had some great successes and some dissapointments, just don't expect to go for really cheap eggs and end up WITH show quality birdS.

I recently got 12 call duck eggs for 99p but postage was about £8, only 1 was fertile and that died in the egg

it was pure white, even the beak and feet.

If you are looking for bantam eggs, I have two chamois poland girls with a dark grey/blue silkie boy

you are welcome to some eggs free if you live nearby

I really would advise you first tho to read the section on hatching eggs, as you can end up with more than you bargained for, or even end up with one lonely chick that will need lots of attention.

We currently have a little screamer in a hamster cage in the kitchen thats driving us nuts, when the little fellas want attention they just open their beaks and won't give up...bless... he don't like being held just wants someone to be there by the cage

But on the other hand, we have a new adorable toulouse gosling girl who follows us around and just wants to be cuddled all the time

[CatsCube]

All of mine have been through assorted ebay sellers, I decided not to put all my eggs in one basket so to speak and use 3 sellers, so that if one was a dodgy seller it wouldn't all be a waste of time, out of 24 ebay eggs only 4 were infertile, so I was happy, and Im re using two of the sellers right now. There are definatly some things to check though, as already mentioned check feedback, a lot of people comment post sale on how many were fertile when candled, some also offer replacement eggs if say any less than 4 out of 6 are fertile. Another thing is seeing how many hens they have running with how many cocks. I was tempted by some chocolate pekin eggs that were a cheap buy now price, but when I read the description the seller had only 1 cock servicing about 12 hens, and sure enough feedback showed a lot of people only having 1 or no fertile eggs.

 

See how they are posting and what days a week they post, all mine were posted same or next day, on a guaranteed next day delivery and sent in poly boxes. So long as eggs are taken away stright after laying and stored somewhere cool they do not start to develop until they are placed into in incu or under a broody, it best if this can be done within a week/10 days of laying before fertility is effected. Eggs should be kept pointy end down and left to settle for 24/48 hours before setting them.

[Jools]

I'd recommend only buying hatching eggs from a recommended seller as there are a lot of charlatans out there and even more disappointed customers.

 

Once you've decided what breed you'd like to have, you could ask here if anyone can recommend a genuine, reliable breeder. A lot of us frequent other forums too so there's bound to be someone who knows someone.

 

I'd strongly recommend buying a good book first and reading up on what you'll need, what to do and what can (and will) go wrong. It's not always plain sailing and needs a lot of thought and preparation.

 

Katie Thear's Starting with Chickens is often recommended as a general "first chickens" book. Specifically for rearing chickens, there's her Incubation: A Guide to Hatching and Rearing.

 

Hope this helps

[Redwing]

I'm with Jools on this, settle on your breed/s then find a breeder

 

Better still find a breeder close to you - the postal system can have an enormous impact on the hatchability of eggs

 

When an egg is laid, its collected and put aside for selling -unless an egg has already started incubation it will be fine, you just set the eggs in an incubator or under a broody hen and they will start developing within about 24 hours - thats why when they are laid they havent started incubation so can be posted out - the hen wont have sat on the egg, she will leave the nest box after its laid

 

The fertility of the eggs starts declining after about 7-10 days so its important to find someone that has more than one pair of the birds as otherwise your oldest egg will be a week old before you even get it (people with lots of different breeds sometimes only keep one pair of each breed as its less birds to feed) they can stay fertile up to three weeks but never bank on that

[emmastar]

I got 6 silkie eggs from ebay and only 1 was frtile and just to top it off the egg hatched out and it wasnt what i had ordered i ordered 6 white bearded silkies and out hatches a black silkie haha its cute though but the hatch was disapointing and finding a seller of day old was a pain as i couldnt have 1 chock on its own ,

[JillM]

Earlier in the year I bought 2 cream crested legbars from Wernlas and was very happy with them. So when one of my hybrids went broody I ordered 8 eggs from Wernlas (6x Golden Spangled Appenzeller, and 2x Old English Pheasant Fowl). They posted them out the next day, and arrved with me the day after that.

 

I popped them straight under my broody and about day 21 five of the 8 had hatched. I left the others in for a few more days until the hen had given up on them. Then got rid of them when they were stone cold.

 

The chicks are now 5 weeks old, have grown well on their medicated chick crumb, and I have 4 of the Appenzellers, and 1 Old English. Now I am just waiting to find out which ones might be male....

 

I think it's a great way to pick up breeds you might not get hold of easily, and it's probably easier if you have a decent broody as she'll take care of them and regulate their temperature for them. On the other hand I only did it because she was broody. I wouldn't do it again, and certainly would never go through the expense of buying incubators and stuff, unless I had much more room or was planning on selling the chicks on. And I'm not looking forward to having to get rid of any males but I live in a terrace in the city, and that just wouldn't do!

 

Next time I need to replace my flock I will be buying POL or getting ex-bats. But it has been a lovely experience hatching and raising our own chicks.