Sunset Croft Heritage Poultry
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Our Breeds
    • Australorp
    • Buff Plymouth
    • Silver Laced Barnevelder
    • White Orpington
    • Rhode Island Red
  • Showcase
  • Products
  • Sale Yard
  • Keeping Chickens
    • Health Issues >
      • Mites & Lice
      • Worms >
        • Flubenol Poultry Wormer
      • Scaly Leg
      • Illnesses of the Crop
      • Coccidiosis
      • Perosis (Slipped Tendon)
    • Broody Hens
    • Rearing Chicks
  • Hen Houses
  • Contact Us/Order Form
    • Customer Reviews
    • Our Terms



Fertile Hatching Eggs
$4.00 each
(minimum purchase 6 eggs)

Gold Laced Wyandotte with chicks

Purebred fertile hatching eggs for your broody hen or incubator. 
Available October to January.

Baby chicks hatched from Sunset Croft eggs
It is a wonderful experience hatching and rearing your own chicks and watching them grow from balls of fluff into fully fledged layers. 
Our fertile hatching eggs are very popular and demand for certain breeds during the season may mean a short wait to supply your order. 

We set eggs in our incubators throughout our breeding season to monitor fertility so we can be confident with the quality of the eggs we sell.  During winter when laying and fertility is low, eggs are unavailable.  Buying fertile eggs is always going to be a gamble and there are no guarantees.  It is unrealistic to expect every egg to develop and hatch, as many factors will affect the outcome.

Once you receive your eggs, whether they've been picked up or sent, it is best to rest them overnight to allow the air sacks to settle after their journey and optimise the chances of a successful hatch.  Even a short drive home can affect the eggs.  Eggs should be stored in the egg carton, laying on its side and turned over 180 degrees once every 12 hours until you are ready to set them under your heat source.  Do not keep them warm prior to setting.

We strongly recommend using Poultry Tonic for newly hatched chicks and this can be added to your egg order so you have it on hand when your chicks hatch.

Broody hen
Eggs will hatch 21 days from the date they are set, not from the date they are laid, as the incubation process doesn't begin until heat is applied.  A hen in the wild will lay an egg in a secret hideaway and return to her nest every day to lay until she has what she considers the right amount of eggs.  She will then go broody and sit for three weeks until her chicks hatch.  Some of those eggs may be over two weeks old before she sits, but they will all hatch on the same day.
Information on hatching under a broody hen

Australorp

Australorp
Black and Blue

Buff Plymouth

Buff Plymouth Rock

Rhode Island Red

Rhode Island Red

Shipping and packaging: Courier Nationwide up to two dozen $19.00
Target delivery one to three days.  Rural delivery may be outside of these time frames.  Eggs sent Monday to Wednesday so they arrive before the weekend.
We send eggs all over New Zealand but we cannot ship internationally as we are not commercial producers or registered exporters and cannot supply the bio-security certification required in some countries.  However, several of our clients have taken eggs overseas on international flights in their hand luggage, with some success, so this is an option if you are visiting New Zealand and wish to introduce new blood lines from abroad.  Check your country's border control regulations first.

We package eggs extremely well to protect against breakages, but once they leave our hands, we cannot be responsible for what happens to them and internal damage caused during shipping is a possibility.  Fertility and hatchability will be affected by rough handling or delays during shipment, exposure to too much heat or cold and incubation issues, such as unreliable equipment and lack of knowledge about the process.  Any eggs that fail to develop were not necessarily infertile at the time they were sent.  By having your eggs shipped, you accept the risk involved and understand there's a chance the embryos may not develop.  Remember you are buying EGGS, not guaranteed chicks.  There are no guarantees and we do not offer refunds or replacements in the event breakages during shipping or a poor hatch.

To learn more about each of our breeds, select from the drop-down menu under Our Breeds.

Sunset Croft Heritage Poultry


Copyright © 2014 - 2021 Sunset Croft.  
Web design, text and photography by Carolynn Harris