As a guide when selling:
Its reasonable for buyer to expect *40-60% fertility which should show up by 4th day candling
*In most situations. If the buyer orders from location across county which shipping is 3-4 days out, they should understand more risk.
Now to get to this 50% you should be keeping in mind your flock and what's going on- Are some hens getting 80% of the attention and others laying but left out of the mating? Can be so. Also candle some eggs. Are the shells healthy, too thin or mottled? If so, fertility and /hatch will be affected. Thus, you can adjust 'extras' to cope/make up for it but seek consult info to fix. Notice half your eggs mottled?- cant even see into them-buyer will not be happy as they'll be infertile. Adjust your feed, and your auction time so you can add more eggs.
This is especially true when buyer getting less than 8 eggs. Shipping adds proportionately more cost per egg. The buyer is not going to be happy if she paid 45.00 and just got 2 good eggs.
So much trouble is averting by checking mottling, and adding a few extras!
Please, if your eggs will not be ready and its more than 2 weeks from listing time, use words "pre-sale" or similar in TITLE. Please also do not list if this presale over 3 weeks away.
For Buyers:
Hatching eggs odds of hatching go down with long postal trips. You may wish to check your USPS location against the seller's and if its more than 2 days highly prioritize auctions that are 1-2 days out.
Reasonable expectations is that seller ships within about 5 days and if longer communicates this and reasons why and if more than 7 days out provides additional extra eggs.
Also what is generally reasonable is to have 50% or better fertile eggs. Hatching them from that point is 100% on you. If say 2 out of 7 are fertile, its poor, but well there are some and partial refund could at least be expected. If 0 or 1, full refund can be reasonable to request. You should include info on egg condition which can help seller improve her hatch.
In situations where you did get good value as perhaps seller gave lots of extras and are giving + rating. Still provide feedback on condition should many eggs have issues as this will help them adjust. Its not great for anyone, animals or people when egg producers are in the dark about some issue. And often they happy to be able to improve.
You should have incubator that has stable temperature. This should be tested with a thermometer -the type that looks like the mercury ones vs the little square digital ones for accuracy. You may need test occasionally during incubation as well and make adjustments. If you don't have good stability your hatch will be affected. Humidity is far more robust but also needs some attention.
The auction is about getting reasonable number of fertile eggs, from there its all your responsibility.
Packing and shipping are the responsibility of the seller. If the box is mashed up, ok that is post office claim. Do not allow sellers to dump responsibility on the struggling post office. If they were not packed well- communicate first with seller, with ebay as needed, take your pics and get the refund.
