Ack, what have I done with my 1st hatch?

[tryingtohaveitall]

Help! Things have been going really well in our first two days with our bator. This morning my humidity was done, so I added water. (Hova Bator 2362). We went away for a few hours,came back and my temp's 71! Humidity 92!!! Crap! I put in some paper towels and soaked up some of the water. Any other suggestions?

It's on a power strip. It seemed to be on, but I'm not sure. I turned it off, then on again and the bator started up heating. Surely a few hours of this won't kill my chicks, right? Please say yes!

Thanks for your help.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Info on power outages during Incubation.
From- A Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow

The more valuable your hatching eggs are, the more likely it is that the electricity will go out during incubation. If you have an uninterruptable power source (UPS) for your computer or other electronic equipment, consider disconnecting the usual equipment and using the UPS to power your incubator. If the outage comtinues beyond its capacity to keep your incubator running, or you don't have an UPS, open the incubator and let the eggs cool until the power goes back on.

Trying to keep the eggs warm is likely to cause abnormal embryo development. Furthermore, if you close the vents or wrap the incubator with blankets in your attempt to keep eggs warm, a greater danger than temperature loss is oxygen deprivation. Developing embryos use up oxygen rather rapidly, and the oxygen level may soon fall below that necessary to keep them alive.

As soon as the power goes back on, close the incubator and continue operating it as usual. The effect of the outage on your hatch will depend on how long the power was out and on how long the eggs had been incubated before the outage. A power failure of up to 12 hours may not significally affect the hatch (except to delay it somewhat), especially if the outage occurred during the early incubation, when cooled embryos naturally tend to go dormant. Embryos that are close to term generate enough heat to carry them through a short-term outage.

I would continue the hatch and at 7-10 days candle and see what they are doing. Good luck!

 

[tryingtohaveitall]

Thank you, that is reassuring. Any suggestions on the humidity? I just went and checked. The temp's already up to 82, which makes me feel better. That's probably no different than if momma got off the nest, right?

Now the humidity... I have two hygrometers in there. One's readng 72, the other 89. Good grief, obviously not very accurate.