Received an order of eggs from Ebay seller, poorly packaged and several broken eggs

[Carterborchers]

I’m late to this, but had a similar experience…twice. The first had an exploded rotten egg. The smell! They were supposed to be laid the same day as shipping. Of those, one hatched. One! Second time, different seller, every single one hatched somehow. Third shipment (seller with whites), came shaken up. Of 20, 7 hatched, at least 3 had problems from malposition, and now one looks like it’s developing wrye neck.

Most sellers will resend but expect more shipping money.

 

[Carterborchers]

Rinsed all the eggs in cool water then sprayed with hydrogen peroxide. Of 15 shipped, 11 were not smashed but I think three more (at least) are cracked. Was a pain in the bottom, several had shredded newspaper stuck to them.

It seems like the ones with even a small fine crack (but membrane intact)…sometimes only catch it with candling… gets all of the moisture sucked out of it. I didn’t know what a shaken egg looked like with my last shipment of white button quail eggs. I just knew it didn’t look right. Most of the eggs didn’t make it, and those that did had problems… curly foot, wrye neck.

 

[romea]

Rinsed all the eggs in cool water then sprayed with hydrogen peroxide. Of 15 shipped, 11 were not smashed but I think three more (at least) are cracked. Was a pain in the bottom, several had shredded newspaper stuck to them.

This sounds like you ended up incubating what you were able to save. Can you please give us an update on the hatch?

 

[Airyaman]

This sounds like you ended up incubating what you were able to save. Can you please give us an update on the hatch?

I did not incubate them. I already had too many other eggs going and to be honest, the more I looked at the flock photos of the seller, the more I realized they weren't going to be the best stock to start out with (too much mixing). The seller did refund the order however (they were nasty with me, but I in turn told them I would give a bad review with photos if they did not refund my money).

 

[romea]

I did not incubate them. I already had too many other eggs going and to be honest, the more I looked at the flock photos of the seller, the more I realized they weren't going to be the best stock to start out with (too much mixing). The seller did refund the order however (they were nasty with me, but I in turn told them I would give a bad review with photos if they did not refund my money).

Thank you for the info! I had an eBay seller send me eggs packed in wood shavings... While they were individually bubble wrapped, they were set into a thin styrofoam egg carton - and the wood shavings had, of course, zero bounce...
She might as well have encased them in concrete.
(I ended up with 2 cracked eggs, 2 'duds', and am currently very worried how the others will be faring.)

 

[Airyaman]

Thank you for the info! I had an eBay seller send me eggs packed in wood shavings... While they were individually bubble wrapped, they were set into a thin styrofoam egg carton - and the wood shavings had, of course, zero bounce...
She might as well have encased them in concrete.
(I ended up with 2 cracked eggs, 2 'duds', and am currently very worried how the others will be faring.)

While my hatch rate prior to my last was dismal for shipped eggs from Ebay (23%), that was the only one I had broken eggs and poor packaging with. Most were much better packaged but almost all were several days late. My very last hatch was 75%, but that came from an in state seller and it took only one day. Now, who knows what the actual fertility rate of any of them were, but not sure I'd do too many more Ebay egg purchases unless they were very close by (one state over at most).

I currently have 8 Bielefelder eggs in the incubator now. They've been in for 12 days but I have not candled any of them yet. They had the biggest US tour of all eggs so far. They spent several days in Louisville KY (seller is in KY), finally got to Birmingham AL (40 miles away), but then went out to Aurora CO! Then to TX, and finally they got to me 7 days later than the original expected delivery date. I have zero expectations for them, but I need some hens because the only one I hatched in my first batch from the seller was one cockerel. Well, that and two Jersey Giants that weren't supposed to be in there! The seller sent me a new batch because of the mix up.

We'll see what happens!

 

[romea]

While my hatch rate prior to my last was dismal for shipped eggs from Ebay (23%), that was the only one I had broken eggs and poor packaging with. Most were much better packaged but almost all were several days late. My very last hatch was 75%, but that came from an in state seller and it took only one day. Now, who knows what the actual fertility rate of any of them were, but not sure I'd do too many more Ebay egg purchases unless they were very close by (one state over at most).

I currently have 8 Bielefelder eggs in the incubator now. They've been in for 12 days but I have not candled any of them yet. They had the biggest US tour of all eggs so far. They spent several days in Louisville KY (seller is in KY), finally got to Birmingham AL (40 miles away), but then went out to Aurora CO! Then to TX, and finally they got to me 7 days later than the original expected delivery date. I have zero expectations for them, but I need some hens because the only one I hatched in my first batch from the seller was one cockerel. Well, that and two Jersey Giants that weren't supposed to be in there! The seller sent me a new batch because of the mix up.

We'll see what happens!

Ah, yikes.... My thoughts are that the time it took to reach you isn't the biggest problem. I had hens lay eggs into a hidden community nest under a bush - and the time it took for a broody hen to decide she finally had enough was probably up to almost 2 weeks. (She ended up sitting on a pile of them like a queen on a throne. ) It was also still fairly cold at nights but non of that ended up being a problem.
The part that worries me the most about the shipping of eggs is the bouncing around on conveyor belts and the potential of omlett-ifying them because of that... *sigh*

I guess it's::: good luck to both of us!

 

[Down Under]

Can I ask why do people buy eggs from eBay?

These days I will not bother with eggs that I have not seen the parents of, in the early days I didn't see the parents but I had a lot of communication with each breeder and asked a lot of questions before committing to buying the eggs but experience woke me up to the fact that you need to see the parents.
eBay just seems like a lucky dip to me for something that you have to put a lot of time, effort and work into raising and then keeping for years to come. Plus there is the thing in the back of my mind that if they were a good breeder why would they need to sell on eBay at all.

 

[romea]

Can I ask why do people buy eggs from eBay?

These days I will not bother with eggs that I have not seen the parents of, in the early days I didn't see the parents but I had a lot of communication with each breeder and asked a lot of questions before committing to buying the eggs but experience woke me up to the fact that you need to see the parents.
eBay just seems like a lucky dip to me for something that you have to put a lot of time, effort and work into raising and then keeping for years to come. Plus there is the thing in the back of my mind that if they were a good breeder why would they need to sell on eBay at all.

These are all good points. This breeder was also difficult to deal with because she responded in 5 word sentences that were sometimes more than cryptic. (Okay... I am joking about the 5 words... some ran into 10+...)
There were a lot of reasons why she couldn't produce pictures of the parent birds and I was running out of time, trying to coordinate the hatching of to different batches and not loosing my place in the queue at the same time.
Anyway, I realized early on that this deal was less than i-deal - so why did I go forward, you may wonder?
It is fairly simple: because I very much like a certain breed in a certain colour that I cannot get within a 2000 mile radius.

The second batch I mentioned was also shipped to me - but what a different experience that was! The breeder turned out to be the exact opposite and is a joy to work with. She goes above & beyond and is truly amazing in her dedication to her flock. Of course, her eggs were beautifully packed and arrived in excellent condition - despite a 3,500 mile journey...

I hope I was able to explain why I knowingly went "va banque"...