Packing & shipping eggs

April 18th 2010

Skyline Poultry started with the first eggs I ordered and received through the mail. My first thought upon receiving those eggs was that I could do a better packing job, but I didn't really dwell on it.  Over time, I received more eggs and everyone’s packing methods were slightly different. At first, I never considered how the packing methods would affect my hatch rate.  Also, I didn't keep track of what hatched from the different orders. 

After I started my business I had a discussion with a local customer regarding the different methods of packing and shipping.  My customer’s point of view was that the packing and shipping method directly impacted the hatch rate. He continued to describe his preferred method of receiving chicks and then I started thinking to myself, hey, that’s my method!  It occurred to me that I had never received any complaints and, in fact, I had always been complimented on my packing. From that day forward I had the idea to run a number of tests on hatch rates from various different packing styles.

I figured I'd start with one breed of chicken egg and keep it continuous through each test. For starters, I'll simulate the complete process all the way down to re-enacting the transportation process.  My simulation idea is to move the boxes around and take them for rides in my car to mimic the vibrations and climactic variations. I realize that the tests will take time because I'll have to put each method through a series of conditions. The different packing methods I want to evaluate are egg cartons packed with either tissue, bubble wrap, saw dust, newspaper, or popcorn.  Also, I want to test a combination of these different methods and see if the best possible result is a mixture of 2 or 3 items.

By doing all of these tests I hope to put to rest a lot of misconceptions regarding packing and shipping.

MAY 28th 2010

With my first packing test I done two types of wrapping methods around the eggs with bubble wrap. First I decided to have two medium flat rate USPS boxes packed with 6 eggs in each box. The first box was packed with 6 room temperature eggs about 3-4 days old and the second box was packed with 6 refrigerated eggs chilled and held at 55 degrees for no longer than 5 days before I packed them. In each box I wrapped 3 eggs all the way around with bubble wrap with all ends tapped and the other 3 eggs I left the ends open. You would think that with the ends open that the egg would slide on out. But when you wrap the bubble wrap around the egg, you have to make sure that the bubble side is touching the eggs and not the smooth side. You have to wrap the egg snug but not tight. By wrapping the egg this way the bubbles form to the egg and kind of creates a small cradle to keep it lifted to the center. My theory on egg wrapping is to imagine having your eggs suspended in mid air in the center of the box. If there’s nothing touching the egg then there’s no transfer of vibration to the egg. Now I know you can’t have an egg magically suspended in a box with nothing touching it but why not find materials that could create less mass between the box and the egg. I’ve thought of everything from strings wrapped around the eggs to keep them suspended to rubber bands. That would be a lot of work and very time consuming, but I haven’t ruled out that innovation yet. That’ll be another thing to work on.