Day 21. Light bulb blew

[mlrod1914]

I'm a little concerned. We're on day 21 of incubation. Have 4 eggs. One pipped yesterday and hatched this morning (yay!) one other pipped early this morning but no progress yet. Others have yet to pip. I just noticed an hour ago that the light bulb blew and temp got down to 86 degrees. The humidity is fine. I've quickly rectified the situation and temp is now at 98.2 and slowly rising. How much damage may have been done?? Temp and humidity were perfect from day 1 til now
The switch won't work now on the light so I'm using the red brooder lamp. Guess I'll have to manually adjust all day sigh. Chicken parent hood am I right? (homemade coolerbator)

 

[ChickenCanoe]

So far, probably little damage. Near hatch time embryos can handle larger temperature swings.

This read should ease your mind.
http://www.brinsea.com/Articles/Advice/PowerOff.aspx

I would use a different type of lamp.
Infrared lamps warm what they're aimed at and could cause the eggs to get too hot.

After this hatch, I recommend a metallic heat element. I replaced all the lamps just for the fear that the constant cycling of power really shortens the life of the lamp filament. There are a lot of different styles depending on the wattage you need.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-Watt-Ro...r-Egg-Incubator-Brooder-110V-AC-/330844854998

http://www.ebay.com/itm/110V-Heatin...Replacement-/181721384723?hash=item2a4f704713

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Incubator-H...eating-Part-/381405705033?hash=item58cd8d3349

The following ones are what I use. A lot depends on the size of your incubator.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/330778567592?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/271122790912?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82

 

[mlrod1914]

Thank you. I have a brinsea thermostat and two additional thermometers in different places inside. I noticed that one of them red 107 at one point (where light was strong) while the brinsea read 102. So I have moved the lamp so it is close to incubator but not shining through the glass so it's indirectly warming. So far it's at 97.8 now. I really hope egglets will be ok. The one chick is fine so far. Humidity good. About 75-80%

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Yeah, infrared is for warming animals, not good for incubating eggs.

 

[mlrod1914]

Ok husband got home and we were able to get things right again (switch working again and new light bulb installed). Hope our Chickies hatch.

 

[MeepBeep]

I replaced all the lamps just for the fear that the constant cycling of power really shortens the life of the lamp filament.

Or just use two bulbs instead of one... This assumes you have it thermostatically controlled and not playing some balance act...

And it just requires a cheap adapter like this...

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Leviton-...t-Lamp-Holder-Adapter-R52-00128-00W/100356967

Using two different brand bulbs helps as well so you have different builds and don't have the risk of both blowing out in short period of time because they are built the same... That or stagger their install times...

I still like light bulbs because they are cheap, easy to obtain and very, very efficient at making heat, contrary to myths about them being outlawed, they are only outlawed for 'general illumination' purposes... Heavy duty, contractor grade, appliance, specialty, novelty and what not incandescent bulbs are still perfectly legal, but the stores like the higher profit margins of florescent and LED so you have to shop around... I get mine at the local dollar store, they always have a nice selection of incandescent bulbs, so do many small hardware stores...

I originally made my incubator with a single light bulb, that being a 60W bulb... Later I screwed in the dual adapter and converted it to two 40W appliance bulbs... Even one 40W will maintain the heat it just needs to cycle on longer, so there is little risk of total failure as long as I keep a casual eye on it and replace a single bulb when it blows...

 

[ChickenCanoe]

My incubator is much too large. A 40 watt heat source doesn't come close to heating it sufficiently.
The thing I like about the metallic elements is they last virtually forever and never burn out during an incubation.

 

[MeepBeep]

My incubator is much too large. A 40 watt heat source doesn't come close to heating it sufficiently.
The thing I like about the metallic elements is they last virtually forever and never burn out during an incubation.

That was just an example showing a plan for backup redundancy, of course the heat required varies by incubator size...

I personally don't like exposed resistance metal heating elements in incubators due to fire and burn risk, to each their own... Instead I prefer to use PTC (Positive Temperature Coefficient) ceramic elements in large incubators because of their inherit nature of having their own built in own fail safe thermostat and won't reach ignition temps... And even when I use PTC ceramic elements I prefer to use two, that way I have built in redundancy even though they have extremely long life expediencies...