Can Incubating Eggs Travel?

[ChickenGirl555]

My mother is planning to bring some of my eggs to the daycare she works at, so that the children can watch the chicks hatch. The problem is...she knows nothing about chickens while I'm the one who has incubated twice already. So we started the eggs at our house and they are on day 5 now of incubation, however our house is 45-ish minutes away from her work. We could keep the incubator plugged in during the drive with the outlet installed in our car, but obviously it's a car and will be very shaky and not a perfect, stable 99F environment. Will the embryos survive this? We planned to move them 2 or so days before lockdown, so they wouldn't be away from my constant attention for very long, since my mother would obviously not be around more than 10 hours a work day to watch them.

Honestly, I want to just finish the incubation at home like normal since this seems like bad timing and an overall bad idea. But she's very set on doing this, so please offer a "completely not possible" or a "yeah there might be chance", because I want to feel at least a little hope in using all my time for these three weeks and possibly getting something (a chick) out of it, or I want to know if I should start convincing her to wait until they're hatched to bring them to her work with strong reason. She's an incredibly stubborn person, so I need some help to make an argument. Please offer any advice!

 

[Cecisflock]

ggs to the daycare she works at, so that the children can watch the chicks hatch. The problem is...she knows nothing about chickens while I'm the one who has incubated twice already.

That sounds like a bad plan if she doesn't know what she is doing.

Will the embryos survive this?

I honestly don't think they will, those 45ish minutes need to be stable

 

[ChickenCanoe]

If you have turned religiously, temperature is appropriate and humidity is high, they don't need to be watched. They'll do the work without human intervention.
A hen gets off the nest daily so a short cooling isn't a problem.
Just give her explicit instructions on incubator placement, etc.
When I had eggs hatching in a classroom, the biggest problem I had was when the kids constantly wanted to open the incubator.

 

[Cecisflock]

If you have turned religiously, temperature is appropriate and humidity is high, they don't need to be watched. They'll do the work without human intervention.
A hen gets off the nest daily so a short cooling isn't a problem.
Just give her explicit instructions on incubator placement, etc.
When I had eggs hatching in a classroom, the biggest problem I had was when the kids constantly wanted to open the incubator.

But if you (op) don't feel comfortable just say no and tell your mother we said it was a bad idea!

 

[Dinoroar]

Last fall I drove 2 incubators full of egg to my parents house because our power went out 2 days before hatch. Then the next day I went and got them and brought them home. It was about a 15 min trip each way and they were not plugged in in the car. I had no problems with the hatch. If you do it I’d just focus on minimizing the jostling in transit.

I do think it could be done successfully. But it absolutely would introduce additional risk so I personally wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to. & I really wouldn’t want to have an excited classroom watching a failed hatch

 

[ChickenGirl555]

Thanks for all the advice! With all your input, I’m thinking I might ask if I could simply have a live stream on the eggs during lockdown for the kids to watch, and then bring them in once hatched. I’ll introduce the idea to her tonight and hope she takes it! I’m very protective of my babies....she’s an optimist but logic doesn’t work in her favor sometimes.