The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: suziequeue on June 16, 2013, 10:12:07 am
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There has been alot of feedback on the "eBay eggs" thread. It wouldn't be unreasonable to have a feedback thread on here like the abbatoir one
The information should include:
- Name of supplier, location and contact details
- How did you get to hear of them (e.g. eBay, magazine advert, TAS, personal contact, show etc)
- Breeds available
- Collect or post
- Customer service
- Hatching method (hen or incy)
- Level of expertise
- Did the breed of hatched chick meet expectations
- Hatch rate could be included but is not really top of the list. For example - we had a hatch rate of 0% for one clutch but I now know that it was because we put too many under her - so it wouldn't be fair to mark that down to the supplier - that's due to our lack of experience.
- Any other comments
What do people think
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Dangerous ground here Susie. Dan could end up with problems if people start slagging off egg sellers through this site. No other site will risk it, as PP has been very firm on this topic.
We all know the risks buying eggs and having them sent through the post. There are a lot of scammers out there and if ever I see some nice birds in the photograph that are listed on ebay I do a google search of that breed. Many times I have found a stolen image from on there.
Iv'e had loads of people using photos of my birds to sell their eggs and reporting them to ebay is a waste of time. I warn them it is fraud and if they don't remove the photo I buy them and leave negative feedback.
It's a risk you take, but never give positive feedback on getting the eggs delivered. The postman does that, all the seller did was to manage to pop them in a stupid polybox and find a post office.
Your buying fertile hatching eggs for incubation. If they don't hatch your being ripped off.
I know this will get replies from sellers saying it was an incubation problem....Rubbish 75% of the time it was infertile eggs.
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It's a risk you take, but never give positive feedback on getting the eggs delivered. The postman does that, all the seller did was to manage to pop them in a stupid polybox and find a post office.
Your buying fertile hatching eggs for incubation. If they don't hatch your being ripped off.
I know this will get replies from sellers saying it was an incubation problem....Rubbish 75% of the time it was infertile eggs.
Bit contentious of you there CF. You were only recently waxing lyrical on facebook about an ebay supplier from whom you bought hatching eggs......delighted with the service and packaging you were .Delighted enough in fact to share a link with said suppliers details...... :sunshine:
You know as well as I and many others on here and elsewhere that there are good and bad sellers everywhere not just on ebay.... :eyelashes:
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wev only had 30% hatch rate by posted eggs yet 95% from collected eggs. iv never bought from ebay but private breeders who happened live on the other side of the country.
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We do need to be careful about negative feedback, especially since we cannot verify a transaction actually took place and because posters here can sit behind a pseudonym and are effectively anonymous.
eBay has its own feedback mechanisms, and these are tied to individual transactions - this should be used in the first instance when buying from eBay.
Unlike abattoirs, where there are clear geographies, small numbers and limited competition, I can see the potential for misrepresentation here. Also, the Good Abattoir Guide isn't part of TAS - there's a thread on here where you can post your experiences, but those are then compiled with no little effort by Oaklands into the full guide.
I can see the benefit to sharing this information, but the compilation is the key part - if we have 100 submissions it's going to be difficult to sift through them to find a particular seller, and to get a balanced view if they have had multiple feedback posts.
Happy to listen to suggestions for how we might handle this, so long as we don't get sued :thumbsup: and don't have a major moderation/organisational overhead.
Dan
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Leaving bad feedback is always difficult for all the reasons already said but you could always have a "recommended" list. Might give people a bit of guidance if others have had a positive experience. It is of course possibly open to abuse as sellers could post false positive feedback about themselves but I suspect admin could spot many of them.
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positive recommendation only is the way to go.
i know a great breeder who iv got great poultry from and i know they sell via ebay - tho iv no idea of their ebay name tho...lol
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Yes - that sounds like a good way forward. So positive recommendations only. Then it's up to the buyer to decide.
I have changed the title of the post.
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Great, thanks, sounds good to me.
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So do you want positive recommendations on this thread or are you going to start a new thread? I've bought in hatching eggs from three different places this year (none via eBay though) and all have been brilliant fertility. Hatching less good in some cases but that was 100% at my end. So happy to recommend all of them.
H
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If you put the recommendations on here and I will collate the information in a document which I will update as new comments come in.
Not sure how the abattoir one works but I would hope that it could be like that a bit.....
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I would be happy to recommend a supplier in Somerset. The only thing that I'm not sure about is commenting on the "level of expertise". Not sure that I'm sufficiently knowledgeable to be able to judge.
Presumably, if everything else is good, it must be a reflection of the supplier's expertise?? :thinking:
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Sorry- I meant level of expertise of the hatcher but since the plan is not to comment/judge on hatching rate, that question is redundant really.
HTH
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OK, here are my three recommendations (and none of them were via eBay but more by googling on the specific breeds I wanted):
Keith's Orps, Bracknell, http://www.keiths-orps.co.uk/ (http://www.keiths-orps.co.uk/)
Found through googling for South-East suppliers of Gold Laced Orpingtons
LF and Bantam Orpingtons in a huge variety of colours
Collect by appointment or by post. I have collected and seen the breeding stock and it's all beautiful - the buff cockerel was the biggest chicken I have ever seen!
Customer service is excellent and I have asked lots and lots of questions by e:mail and phone and Keith has always been very helpful.
Keith is a real specialist in Orpingtons and develops new colours. He doesn't show himself but sources birds from the best breeding stock (he runs two lines of LF buff from top show stock and utility stock) and although I'm no expert and don't show, even I recognise the names of people he's sourced from.
I hatched this batch by broody (hatch wasn't great but that wasn't his fault, the fertility over three colours was 16 from 18 eggs).
Chicks are still tiny so hard to comment on final bird - the colours look about right (they're blue and lavender and the chicks are all some shade of grey/yellow).
South Yeo Farm East, Okehampton, Devon http://www.southyeofarm.co.uk/ (http://www.southyeofarm.co.uk/)
Googling for West of England geese (which I haven't actually got from them but then saw the other breeds they do).
Lots of rare breed chickens (over 20), Cayuga ducks, Aylesbury Exhibition ducks (I think), Swedish ducks and West of England geese (no hatching eggs though, not many will send genuine WoE hatching eggs, they're too rare)
Can collect, I sourced by post
Gillian has been really helpful, the eggs were sent when she said and packaged well - all good. She is very busy though, especially around lambing time, so it was easier to e:mail her than phone.
I sourced Cayuga ducks eggs which were hatched in the incubator and Marans and Aracauna chicken eggs which went under a broody
All lovely birds (although I'm no expert in any of the breeds). Chicks are now five weeks old and fully feathered, very pretty birds. Cayugas are four weeks old, big birds, not yet fully feathered but the feathers that are in are looking good.
Six out of six Cayugas were fertile and hatched. Three out of three Marans were fertile and hatched (pity broody stood on one). Two out of four Araucanas were fertile and both those hatched (but one was very weak and then the cat got it when I had it inside for some extra TLC :-[)
South Yeo Farm West, Okehampton, Devon (http://www.southyeofarmwest.co.uk/ (http://www.southyeofarmwest.co.uk/)) - neighbours to above
Link from South Yeo Farm East
Utility Aylesburys, Black Indian Runners, Black LF Orpingtons, Pilgrim Geese
Collect or post
Debbie was very helpful, had to link to dispatch from their neighbour so I could set all the eggs together and that was no problem
Incubator hatching
Lovely looking big Aylesbury
Five from six eggs were fertile but only hatched two and one died shortly afterwards (think I moved him too soon from the brooder). Three non-hatchers died in shell late on so not a fertility issue from the farm.
Hope this helps -interested to see other recommendations,
H