Cold Incubator

[ccrawf]

Question. I have an incubator with about 15 turkey eggs in it. They had been in the incubator for about 10 days when the power got turned off. Long story short, they were moved and something happened here and the routine was lost. I forgot to turn them and think the power was off for 12-24 hours. The eggs did not feel warm when I turned the incubators back on.

So my question is simple. Anyone think they have a chance of surviving? Or is it a done deal? It has been almost a week now, Hard to tell from candling them if they are still growing or not. Plan to crack one open and see that I find.

Thoughts or comments would be appreciated.

 

[pkw]

My friends husband unplugged her incubator and it was off 2 days before she knew it was unplugged. She plugged it in and the chicks hatched a little late but she did have 3 out of 12 hatch. It never hurts to try. You can always re candle next week to see if they are still alive. If you can't tell I would just let them go the course (perhaps they may be a little later hatching) and see what happens. My house is cold at night so my incubator temps are always a bit low in the mornings but my chicken eggs still shows signs of life in them.

 

[ccrawf]

Thanks. It looks like the turkeys continued to develop. Candled them last night and they are much darker than they were before, so I'm hoping they are still viable. Think the two goose eggs I had are dead, the should have hatched last Sunday. Had 15 turkey eggs, so I'm going to crack one and see what I find. A little peace of mind is worth one egg.

 

[Thomasturkey]

I had a two day power outage last week. I had one incubator in lock down with 6 to 8 turkeys pipped. One incubator due in three days. 4 other incubators with different hatch dates. When I candle them I did not lose as many as I thought I would have. I am still getting some to hatch but many peep and don't hatch. More than what I would normally have. Yesterday I did get 4 to hatch that look healthy. Don't give up and crack any open. That might be the one that would make it and you will have none.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
I agree. I wouldn't give up and I surely wouldn't crack it open. Just let it run it's course and see what happens. Keep us posted.

 

[Scottingitup]

Sounds like you guys should keep some extra large hand warmer packs around for power failures? I don't incubate yet so just thinking out loud here.

 

[ccrawf]

Thanks for the input.
I candled them last night and found a few that obviously had not developed. The rest I'm leaving in to see.
There were two geese eggs that should have hatched 4 days ago, they looked dark, but think I'll wait another day before I crack them.

And for me, it was just a simple, stupid error, not a power failure. Haven't had to deal with that yet.

I had moved the incubators out of the closet and set them up on a new stand with a new power bar. Then the dog attacked the birds and all. Didn't even accor to me that I hadn't turned the eggs yet and have no idea exactly how long it was. 24-36 hours, max.
I got ready to set some more eggs and realized the incubator was cold when I opened it. Checked the others and they were cold as well.
Checked the power button on the power cord and it had been turned off. So I zip tied it in place in order to avoid future problems.
And there has to be about 18 or so turkey eggs and the 2 geese eggs, were all I had set at the time. I'm also hoping that because if was about day 10 it won't cause as many problems as if it were day 2 or day 18. But that is just guessing.

 

[ccrawf]

OK, update for those who are interested. Let the incubaotrs get turned off for a while and the eggs got cold.
Turned them back on and just waited.
Today 4 of the 21 hatched. There are a couple more that are pipped. See what tomorrow brings.

At least one of the poults shows a foot issue, the toes are curled in some and it has a difficult time standing.
Not sure if that is normal. Suspect it is a result of not developing correctly because of temps or something.
Question is will it get over this, or is this a deal breaker from the get-go and I need to accept it?

 

[ColbyNTX]

You can make a little shoe out of an index card or something like that to go on the bottom of its foot. Tape it on with a band-aide His toes should streighten up in a day or two.

 

[exop]

I searched the web for reassurance earlier this spring, when my broody Narragansett turkey abandoned her nest for more than 8 hrs on day 10 of incubation. This thread was helpful to me, and so I thought I'd post my own story here in hopes that it will be helpful to someone else with a related problem...

This broody turkey hen and her eggs had been moved to a secure nesting site (a dog house with a wire front) at the start of incubating, never showed interest in getting up and taking a break, and when she unexpectedly decided to take advantage of an open front door it was during a period of lax human supervision (read: the person who was supposed to shut the turkey door in my absence did not, and then took no action when the turkey went AWOL). This turkey did the typical, broody hen holiday things: dirt bath, food and water break, pooped, roamed around eating vegetation, stood in the water dish and took a protracted foot bath. She then went back to her old nesting site under a bush in the chicken run, leaving her clutch of eggs cooling in the dog box. It was a 50 degree night. When I returned home late in the evening I located the turkey - who in her own way had been drawn to return to her nest, but was in disagreement with me about where exactly it was. I replaced her in the dog box, getting whacked several times in the face with upset turkey wings in the process, and once she was home she stood there looking unhappy for another two hours before noticing the eggs, and finally settling down on them. Away from the nest for around 8 hours, actually off the eggs for at least 10.

To add insult to injury, during the turkey hen's absence our intermittently egg-eating dog had broached the house and removed 3 or 4 eggs, one of which was still intact but slobbered on, with the remains of the others scattered around it on the lawn. Bad dog.

Before I replaced the turkey, I took a couple minutes with a small flashlight to candle the eggs left in the nest, and removed a couple that were obvious clears. Looking at the dog's eggshells, it looked as if the ones she had eaten may have been clears too, judging from the lack of blood traces on the egg membrane. The one she hadn't eaten looked like it was viable, so I rinsed off the slobber and put it back in the nest.

Of the 10 eggs which passed inspection, all of which were chilled for around ten hours on the tenth day of incubation (one egg drooled on, to boot), 8 hatched into chicks. The other 2 didn't develop, appeared to be regular, garden variety rotten eggs.

So there's a happy ending for someone.

Day 10 for a turkey is about as far into incubation as day 7 or 8 for a chicken, so that's still pretty early, and very young embryos are apparently able to slow down and go dormant when they are cooled. It was a relief to see that this actually worked.

Best - exop