POLICIES
SHIPPING
All eggs are shipped in custom foam shippers, double boxed, and sent by USPS Priority 2-3 day mail. If you would like to pay extra for USPS Priority Express 1-2 day delivery or to have your shipment held at your post office, please contact us at the time you place your order.
HATCH RATE AND RETURN POLICY
Due to the delicate nature of fertilized eggs, coupled with a vast multitude of factors beyond our control that can occur during the shipping and handling process, as well as home incubation practices for eggs picked up locally, we do not offer a hatch rate guarantee or offer refunds for poor hatches.
We perform weekly to bi-weekly fertility checks with our eggs by taking a certain number of each variety of egg and cracking them to check the yolk for signs of a blastoderm. The presence of a blastoderm indicates that an egg has been fertilized. We also are continuously running hatches on the homestead for flock improvement and chick orders, which further allows us to track our fertility rates. We carefully monitor our rooster to hen ratios to ensure that no rooster has more hens than he can reliably cover. Unfortunately, a multitude of things can happen to shipped eggs during the journey from our post office to your home or post office. We go to great lengths to ensure that our eggs arrive to you intact by using custom foam shippers, double boxing, and additional packaging materials to mitigate the effects of rough handling to the best of our abilities. But unfortunately, even eggs that appear perfect to the naked eye can be rendered non-viable during transit for reasons including but not limited to: vibration/shaking, extreme changes in temperature, packages being dropped tossed or bounced around in a carrier’s vehicle all day, and other rough treatment during shipping and handling. A non-viable egg is very different than an unfertilized egg. Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine whether a blastoderm was present at the end of an incubation cycle as the contents of the egg are too degraded after being exposed to incubation temperatures for a prolonged period of time.
It is always disappointing when a hatch does not go well, and we have been on the receiving end of this occurrence ourselves more than once. It is a sad reality that hatching eggs are unquestionably a gamble. If your box arrives visibly damaged, or gets lost please file a claim with the USPS. Packages are insured for typical transportation issues.
If you have a poor hatch rate of under 50% development, please contact us through the website and we will work with you for a discounted rate on a one-time exact replacement order.