Category: Icelandic Chickens

My apologies to regular readers who may not be interested in this specific post. I attempted to title it in such a way that you could skip opening it when you received your email notification if you were not interested.

Here at Fayrehale, we successfully ship fertile hatching eggs from our Chanteclers and our Icelandics all over the country. Including into the true wilds of Alaska! This particular Alaska mailing took 10 days and had an 80 something percent hatch!

I have been asked repeatedly how we package the eggs for shipping.  The easiest way to respond is to do a pictorial tutorial here, as a blog post, so that it has a URL that can be shared.

Tri-Fold Egg Cartons

We use a tri-fold egg carton that is perforated to that it can split in half making two, six egg components.  Now, you don’t buy eggs! so you need to know someone in the neighborhood or at work who does and can save the cartons for you.  We are lucky!  Our Village Church has a monthly breakfast, Pete & Gerry’s donates the eggs, and they save the cartons for me! These tri-fold cartons play a large role in our success.

Yes!  Toilet Paper!

Nothing fancy or pretentious about us!  Toilet paper is always handy and we use it to wrap each egg.  Roll the egg six or eight times in the toilet paper. The egg is in the middle so that there is extra paper at both ends. Stand the egg in a compartment as shown above. The extra paper on the bottom squishes around the bottom of the egg — remember this is the narrower end so that the air sac is up.  Repeat until six eggs are standing like the one pictured above.

Snugly Encased

As shown on right side of picture above, the tri-fold is carefully closed. Extra paper nudged if necessary into its own egg shaped compartment. This folds the extra toilet paper over the top. Tape closed. Now each egg is gently and snugly encased in an individual egg shaped compartment.  Wrap each 6 egg unit separately in bubble wrap and tape.  I save and reuse bubble wrap.  If you do not have any, someone you know does!

Boxing

Thicker (or more) bubble wrap is put around each 6 pack. The bottom of a Priority Mail Box is layered with bubble wrap or styrofoam peanuts. The 6 packs are placed side by side in the center of the box. Narrow egg end down.  Bubble wrap and/or styrofoam peanuts used around all four sides and over the top.  The box is sealed with tape.  Everything is now snug. The eggs are very well protected.

We use regular Priority mail and insure in case package is destroyed en route.  Remember you are mailing fresh, unwashed, clean eggs. There is plenty of time! Remember the eggs we mailed that took 10 days to reach their destination in the wilds of Alaska! When a hen starts a clutch she selects a nesting spot and lays an egg every day (occasionally skips a day) until she has a clutch of 16-20 eggs.  That means the eggs sit for three weeks or so before the hen judges the clutch big enough and settles on the nest to incubate. 

The point of that reminder is to let you and your customers relax! The eggs you mail will be received and will start being incubated faster than a hen would do it naturally!

IMPORTANT Note:  We do NOT annotate the package in any fashion! We do NOT say “fragile”, We do NOT say “Fertile Hatching Eggs” – We just address and mail the package as if a regular (light weight) gift!  This is important. It is known, and has been confirmed to me by people in the Postal System, that there are postal employees who will deliberately mishandle packages that are so marked. No need for them to know!

This system has worked very well for us and our customers have been very happy.

Three weeks after receipt they see the results!

Happy Mailing – Happy Hatching