My hatch is not going well. What is happening?

[chicken_angler]

Well, I put 42 eggs in my incubator on the 18th of January. I put in 6 bantam eggs, 10 bobwhites and the rest were coturnix. I planned it for the quail eggs to start hatching on the 6th of February, my birthday. Well, the first one hatched on the 8th. A total of 5 eggs have pipped. Four have hatched and three have died as of now. I have one lonely one in the brooder.

The bad thing that happened is yesterday when we were running a couple of errands, the light bulb burned out. We were gone for about two hours and when we got back, the temp was 67 degrees and the humidity was 100%. The 5th one to pip had gotten too cold and wsnt moving anymore adn the other live one int he incubator died and was freezing.

Are any more of them going to hatch? Did the temp loss kill all of the ones ready to hatch?


Thanks for any advice!
Cody!!

 

[pascopol]

Well, that's what's will likely happen sooner or later to anybody who rely on single heating element be it a coil, or single light bulb.

Can even happen to your 600+ bucks cabinet bator if the heating element goes.

My advice is never rely on a single heating element in your bator and I do not care if it is single bulb homemade bator or expensive Dickey or GQF cabinet.

I use a string of about 15 7W Christmas lights in my homemade bator connected in paralel (If one ore more burns rest of them stays on).

Another benefis of such a setup is that heat is distributed much more evenly than a blast from single bulb.

I believe this is the most reliable set-up there is. If one or 2 bulbs burn out when I am not home, there will be no impact whatsoever on my hatch, thermostat is going to make it up, and even if there is a colder spot somewhere the whole hatch would be OK.

Murphys Law:

If anything can go wrong it will.

 

[chicken_angler]

That is a good idea with the christmas lights. Would you happen to be able to spare a few pics? lol


I am going to build another smaller bator soon so I just might incorporate this idea.

Cody!!