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We bought some eggs on Amazon from a different seller but these didn't hatch. We were disappointed but looked up local live quail chick farms and found AZChickens less than an hour away.
My wife and I placed an order and went to pick them up within the hour. Vince gave us some beautiful, healthy quail chicks and even threw in a dozen eggs. They are AMAZING! We'll be back when we're ready to add to our small flock! Thank you so very much! We'll see you next time!
We ordered 12 eggs, were sent 13, and incubated 12 in our incubator and sent one off to a friend. On day 18, earlier than expected, 2 hatched. We were so excited! Later that day a third hatched. Incredible! We’d been told to leave them in the incubator for 24 hours, so we adhered to that exactly. Close to the 24 hours mark, a 4th began to hatch. We were so excited, filming every change as it happened. When the chick finally emerged, it’s intestines were leaking out from its stomach area… it did not look comfortable or content… we were worried about opening the incubator since we didn’t want to impair the humidity or temperature for the remaining 8 eggs. Within 12 hours, the chick with gastroschesis passed away, and we hadn’t seen any other signs of life from the remaining eggs. We moved the 3 healthy chicks to the brooder, continued to monitor the rest, and nothing happened for days. We are disappointed that we had less than 25% hatch for us, after doing everything exactly as explained. We paid over $75 for the 12 eggs, and we ended up with 3 chicks. Still not ever sure if they’re hens or roosters. Called AZ Chickens and were told that it is what it is, not guarantees with eggs, and we could purchase hatched chicks for $6 each. I’m annoyed that they’re charging such a high premium on sub-standard eggs, when I now know I can get fertilized eggs for much less (or free) from local people. Don’t waste your time with AZ Chickens. You can do better with networking through Facebook and making a few new friends. I’m much happier with my eggs from a local mama, and have had successful hatching over 75%!
Thank you for the feedback and we appreciate you being willing to share your experience. Hatching for the first time is certainly an education and adding the risks with shipped eggs there is a lot of factors involved. I'm glad we talked and during our hour long conversation it seemed a lot was done right from everything you described and some improvements were discussed of what could be done for future hatches as well. Including adding the GoVe (hydrogemeter) to have a 2nd device to help compare your temperature and humidity to what your incubator says.
Having early hatches as you experienced can happen with the Rainbow eggs due to some of the breeds in that flock do lay smaller eggs. Having chicks hatch on day 19, this also gives information about your hatch. Having a high temperature is called fast hatching. Meaning a higher temp they hatch sooner than the default 21 days for chickens. A side effect of fast hatching or having too high of temperature is intestinal issues, major chick deformities and can cause shrink wrapped chicks (can't get out of the eggs fast enough and they get shrinkwrapped in the egg). All things we discussed in our conversation to help for your next hatching experience and sounds like you have #2 hatch already in the incubator.
Seeing the experience of this hatch, the option of sending more eggs was not a good option or risk worth exploring after this first experience. Also sending free chicks and free shipping as what was asked for is not a business practice we offer for mediocre hatch results as it would be a complete loss. Ex: Of the $75 paid for eggs and shipping, $24 of that is just the shipping cost. Sending chicks would cost $35 to ship so this would be $60 of the $75 before any chicks were added. 25% off the same breed of chicks and pay for shipping was offered but declined. At times we have to accept responsibility of our outcome and learn from it for next time. I believe our phone call definitely will help you for future hatches. Hatching eggs is a learned skill and takes experience using your incubator, understanding how to hatch and what factors can cause the hatch to go awry. There is no book that can teach all the hatching factors just experience in doing.
We're glad that your 2nd hatch is going well and that you were able to network with local individuals for eggs you could pickup. We often support our local chicken community especially when we do not have particular breeds, we direct those customers to the local Facebook groups as it is a great option to support our fellow local chicken keepers. The difference with AzChickens is we are tested for diseases each month and twice per year with our veterinarian and the state. This means we continually check that we breed happy, healthy, disease free birds. Chickens do hide sickness very well and many diseases can only be tested for. Additionally AzChickens breeds for heat harty birds. Chickens from a hatchery being bred from a backyard enthusiast do not get pushed to extreme temperatures and often many are unfortunately lost in the summertime because of our heat. A rule we breed by: We don't breed a hen until they're a year old which means they have survived an entire summer heat, proving heat hartiness. That is the confidence and differences in partnering with AzChickens for your flock. We wish you the very best on your flock and hope you enjoy all the babies! God Bless!
I couldn’t wait to get started with my Bresse chicks!! So looking forward to my adventure with this breed! Colwyn is awesome to work with, very helpful! Thank you all!
Overall disappointed. I purchased 24 eggs (no extras were sent), only 8 developed, 6 hatched, and 2 hatched out with severe wry neck. I tried to save the 2 wry necks, but after a week of no improvement, I ended up culling them. So out of 24 eggs, I only got 4 chicks (17%). For that rate and cost, it would have been cheaper to just buy the chicks.
At the same time that I set the AZ Bresse eggs, I also set another dozen shipped eggs from a different Bresse breeder. Those eggs hatched with 83% success rate. So pretty sure it wasn't an incubation problem.
One week old and much more active, aware and growing. Every morning something new. Also, not as afraid of me as each previous morning.
