[uba]

Hi everyone,

My wife and I are moving soon and we will have a much larger garden ( more chooks!). We are thinking about maybe hatching some girls of our own. Currently just starting to look at costs of incubators and what else we might need. My question today though is about buying eggs online, there seems to be alot on ebay. Has anyone bought eggs from ebay sellers and what sort of success have you had with them?

[GrannieAnnie]

You can get good sellers and bad sellers on Ebay.  But another thing to think about is that even decent fertile eggs can get damaged in the post and not hatch.  the air sac can get damaged.

It would be better if you can find eggs reasonably local so you can go and collect them and then you can see where the eggs have come from and that they are good sellers.

Also have you thought about what you will do with any cockerals hatched? 

[uba]

 We would not be able to keep the cocks as we will still be close to neighbours and I dont want to raise them and have to palm them off onto someone else as I am sure all chicken breeders have excess males to deal with. What are the alternatives?

[joyfull]

get point of lays then as every hatching you have at least 50% will be boys 

[gillian62]

I have just had 12 hatching eggs from ebay - none have hatched!! The seller sent 2nd class instead of 1st, and they were at the Post office over the weekend, so that is probably why!!
It has been a total waste of 3 weeks in the incubator and under broody hens - so frustration all round.
I will be buying locally from now on, although it does limit the choice of breeds you can choose from.

[shazzie]

Hi,
I am on my 3rd incubation and luv it!  (currently have 20 fertile eggs in inci, due to hatch 19th)
The 2 times before, out of 24 eggs, bought on ebay, around 18 were fertile. I have had 7 hatch & both times 4 cocks! (this is the downside of hatching because no one wants em)
I have a RCOM king suro inci, which holds 24 eggs and is forced fan & rocks so I dont have to turn eggs, also I have a candler which is a must to be able to tell after about 7 days if eggs are fertile, plus its brill to look inside egg  .  Chick size feed  water containers, big box for brooder, heat lamp, cant think of anything else, hope this helps.
This time I set 24 eggs 3 were infertile and unfortunately I dropped 1 when candling and it had peep    Will try to put pickies on when my peeps hatch, as said all 20 are fertile,  (but that dont mean nothing!) All are cream legbar, because I wanted green/blue egg layers and also can tell sex of chick at hatch.
Any questions please just ask
Shazzie    x
Oh forgot all eggs purchased on ebay

[joyfull]

Shazzie I am surprised you can candle cream legbar eggs as I know araucanas are too dark to see through with a candler.
Welcome to the forum by the way - why not nip over to our welcome section and introduce yourself to everybody 

[bantam novice]

Welcome to the forum, Shazzie 

[GrannieAnnie]

That was going to be my next suggestion.  If you get auto sexing eggs like the cream legbar, at least you will know when they hatch which are boys and you can cull them straight away.

[Chickway]

Morning joyful. I have just hatched 7 araucanas and I saw them when I candled them.  You can buy a super strength candler which they say can see through most eggs.  It cost me £35.00 but it was worth it. x x

[uba]

get point of lays then as every hatching you have at least 50% will be boys 

We want to go further into hobby chicken keeping thats why we want to hatch some chicks. What do you do with unwanted males?

[joyfull]

usually eat them if they cant be rehomed.

[uba]

That was going to be my next suggestion.  If you get auto sexing eggs like the cream legbar, at least you will know when they hatch which are boys and you can cull them straight away.

So is it generally acceptable for me as a hobbyist to cull unwanted males from hatches I do myself?

Sorry I didnt come straight to the point at the start of my topic.

[joyfull]

so long as you do it cleanly and quickly then yes - not nice to do and not everybody can bring themselves to do it 

[GrannieAnnie]

As Joy says, yes, as long as you learn to do it properly.  If you can't do it the traditional way, might be an idea to buy a wall mounted dispatcher from someone like ascott.biz.  £30, but if you intend to hatch for a while its worth the money.

What do you think happens to all the unwanted cockerals?  we try to re-home as many as we can, but the last time we had a pure breed clear out, my Brian had to cull 20!

Not a nice job, but necessary