Eggs and eBay

The Barred Plymouth Rock eggs turned up today. Although the seller marked them as "dispatched" on Wednesday, they weren't actually posted until yesterday - hence their arrival this lunchtime. On arrival, I was disappointed to find one broken. All of the eggs are dated with the date they were laid - I was not happy at all to find that two of them were dated 21/5 - two weeks ago!!

Rather than leave negative feedback for the seller straight away, I emailed to express my disappointment and dismay. He replied and said that he was advertising them for a friend who had only got two birds laying an egg each per day and lately several had been cracked which was what had delayed sending the eggs out to me. I don't buy that as most of the eggs pre-date the day I bought them so they already had these there - only four of them come from later days. He has promised that he will replace them if they are not fertile, so I am going to let them rest and settle overnight and then put them in the incubator tomorrow. I will candle them in a week's time and then let him know.

I won't be using this seller again as I was not happy with the packaging either. Ebay is a very hit and miss affair!!

On our own chick development front - the last Brown Sussex to hatch has got out of the shell - but the FH helped it this morning, and it has a bad foot in that the foot has not spread out properly and is a little twisted. We haven't put it in with the others for fear of bullying, but it is under the lamp in the incubator with the lid off. It is eating and drinking so we will assess its chances in a day or two, if it manages to survive. I won't kill it unless it looks like it is in pain.

All the others are fine and doing well - eating, drinking and pooing, so they will have to be cleaned out in the morning.