AM I SOL?

[bmdakk]

so I had 5 chick eggs and 5 duck eggs in my incubator. 3 chick eggs have hatched successfully. was watching the 4th start to hatch yesterday. it pipped yesterday morning, opened up to where the hole was about the length of a pencil eraser (1/2"). The duck eggs arent due to hatch till wednesday or thursday of this week. My dilemma is this. Last evening a transformer caught fire a mile from my house and my power went out. it was out for approximatly 2.5-3 hrs. The temp in the incubator dropped from 99.5 to around 78 before the power came back on. the whole time I watched the pipping egg and seen movement. woke up this morning eggspecting and newly hatched chick, but there is no change and there is no visable movement through the hole anymore. Is it dead?

do you think the ducks will be fine, or will they be dead also? I know all 5 were viable as of saturday (2 days ago) as I candled them and did have active ducklings in all 5. any advice would be great. Thanks

 

[Ridgerunner]

It’s really hard to tell what is going on inside that pipped egg. Before they hatch they have to absorb the yolk, dry up blood veins outside their body and absorb that blood, and other things. When they internal pip they start learning to breathe air instead of living in a liquid environment. When they start to run out of oxygen in the air cell they external pip so they can get fresh air. They may have mostly finished doing the other things they need to do to hatch or they may still have a lot of work to do. Sometimes they pop out pretty quickly after external pip and sometimes it takes a long time, even more than a full day.

If you can see the beak and it is not moving that doesn’t sound good. I don’t know how you feel about helping a chick hatch but if you think that is a good idea, now might be a good time to try. Just take tiny steps until you know for sure one way or another. If you see blood when you tear the membrane off, stop immediately. It’s still not ready.

I personally would not be that concerned about losing power like that, though I would not be happy about it. What you were measuring was air temperature, not the temperature in the middle of those duck eggs. They take a lot longer to cool down than air. It sounds like they were about 2/3 of the way through hatching. They are living animals and are generating a little heat of their own by then. Not a lot but a little. The only way to know for sure is to go through a normal hatch and see what happens. I don’t think that would cause you a major problem.

 

[bmdakk]

Ok I decided to "help" and it was dead. I hope the ducks survive. Thanks for the reply

 

[Ridgerunner]

Sorry to hear that. About half the time I try to help they die anyway later. Some chicks are just not meant to make it.