Re: blotchy shells

Jill wrote:
rumblings wrote:
Do you not believe that poor shells allow infection in and that this
kills of the chicks??
Poor shells would certainly not give a great hatch but should not
give all non-starters.
Poor shells may not be the only factor then??

You have said that the set was ALL non-starters at candling,


No I think I did have some fertile ones. They didn't reach 11 days though. From what other buyers have said, 2 or 3 fertile out of 6 after posting seems to be about average.



put alongside with Eggbox having hatched from the same breeder on collection, suggests summat happened between collecting eggs from nestbox and them arriving at you.


Chirpy claims to hatch them with good results. If true this would support what you suggest.

Weak shells + heavy eggs = invisible cracks = death of chick before chipping ?


They are packed in polystyrene boxes and then a single layer of bubble wrap and then cardboard outer (ie quite a small compact package. I'd be happier to see a very thick layer of bubble wrap to give more shock protection. I had some duck eggs through Ebay - they were a similar weight but had good thick shells and were wrapped in inches of cling film - and results were 3 out of 7 (not great I know but I was happy with that)




While some eggs will go through the system from some parts of the country and get to you in a hatchable state, its possible that there are systems in the postal setup between him and you that create more of a stress on the package. It only needs to be jerks on the nightshift playing footie with all the lightweight boxes!!! and the state I have seen packages come in would not discount that so fast!!!
Your images and description of the shells do not make them the best for hatching but you would expect them to start and fail if anything, rather than not start at all.

I think fertility is borderline and some of them do start and then fail.

For them to be all affected in shell suggests that either they have more than one pen of birds

Someone else has suggested that. The eggs I've had have also had a wide spread of laying date (pencilled on them). Does this tell us anything??


and Eggbox has been luckier than you

(and most or all of the Ebay buyers)


or they have been truely rumbled in the post - weight of experience tends to suggest the latter I am afraid.
His setup and EB's experience suggest that the stock would be worth getting, maybe you can find someway of getting eggs collected by someone who can reject large wrinkly eggs and get them somewhere into the middle of the country before posting them, or even better find a 24 hour carrier if your are below the Edinburgh / Glasgow line.

Bite Me Once, Shame On You. Bite Me Twice…

What about these ones?? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=46292
.

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