108 degrees and lost 10 eggs!

[CANDLE98]

Today is day 10 and for some strange reason i went in and looked at my incubator and the temp said 108! i started candling and 10 were already dead and there were 9 still moving so i kept the lid off and cooled the eggs and now i am checking the bator every half hour.... i was so excited because all 19 of my eggs were going good. boo... well we will see on the 19th and see if any of the other eggs will live. i am so devistated! I don't know what happened. i will keep you posted.

 

[SilverPhoenix]

Darn, how disappointing!

It's amazing how invested we get in the eggs when you've had them set for a while... I guess that old adage "Don't count your chickens before they hatch!" is true after all. But it's really hard not to get involved--they're your potential babies!

Best of luck with the remaining eggs--I hope they do well for you and nothing like this happens again.

 

[lex381]

i hope you have good luck with the rest of your eggs!

 

[fordmommy]

.....

 

[NateDomRIR]

My last hatch of 63 got up to 108* in the hatcher, 43 hatched. At 7 days old I have 15 left that look like they may live.

 

[pascopol]

Sounds like another styrobator (LG perhaps?) casualty.

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Hi! I can sympathize: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=305258
I don't know how the 'overall hatch' will suffer from the early temp spike, but we can compare notes.
Good luck!

Lisa

 

[NateDomRIR]

Yes it was an LG. It worked fine all last year. The temp was stable until I put all the eggs in, then the temp went crazy. I had it all the way down and it kept going to 102*. I had to plug it in and unplug it all day and night to hatch the chicks. After I took most of the chicks out, the temp stabilized. Do ya think I had too many eggs in there?

For this weeks hatch of 64, I'm hatching in a round metal Brower 846, 100 egg incubator, that I bought at a sale barn for $10. I put a new wafer in it and the temp has been right on!!! Even when I put all those eggs in. Only thing is...it has a small 2" window and I can't see how many have hatched, so I'm gonna TRY and leave them in an extra day. I could only get the humidity up in the 40's. It looks like they hatched good, I just don't want to dry out the other ones that haven't hatched yet. I do a dry incubation in my Sportsman, 25-30%, with all vents fully open.

 

[pascopol]

Never trust LG (Little Monster) no matter what anybody says.

Styrobators killed more developing embrios than they ever hatched.

Run it for 3 or more days to "stabilize it" ? What a joke, it may come with deadly 110 F "spike" any time after that and according to Murphys laws it will happen at night when you sleep.

To make them reliable some people put bottles with water inside, tape top and bottom together, or use any trick somebody can come up with.

Why bother? Take a carton box, a lightbulb, get cheap water heater thermostat, and build your own, you will probably get better results and more satisfaction for around 10 bucks

LG was my first bator, I always struggled with it and hated it. I use it only as a hatcher sometimes if there is no other options due to volume, or necessity of staggered hatch, but then watch it like a hawk day and night during lockdown.

 

[CANDLE98]

I don't have an LG i have a genisis! Why do they make those thermostadts go up to 108 to begin with anyways? They need to make one that we can replace these old ones with that won't let it go over like 102 or something. Maybe someone will come up with that. I know that there is an incubator that is preset, does anyone know if you can buy preset thermostats/heaters?