Devastated! Please help

[sarahdavis]

So I am hatching my first batch and I put them in lockdown on Thursday evening. I look through he window all the time and only mess with anything if I need to quickly grab he sponge out to re-wet it. This morning I woke up and the heat inside the incubator was 109!!! I don't know how that happened. I couldn't resist and I grabbed an egg to candle it and didn't see any movement so I tried one more. Same thing. I have 30 eggs in the bator. Are they all goners?!? I am soooo upset!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Sorry to hear this. 109 Is deadly if it was at that temp for any length of time. Today would be day 21, right? I'd give it 24 hours and see if anything survived. Don't be afraid to candle them either to assess if you see any movement in any of them. It might make you feel better if you can find some kind of movement. It is not going to hurt the eggs to candle, especially since you have none pipped.

 

[sarahdavis]

So I have candles almost all of them. Some of hen are olive green and you can't see inside, but there is no movement. Does that mean there is no hope?

 

[lazy gardener]

You could give them an other 25 hours, as Amy suggests. Some thermostats tend to go wonky when you raise the humidity for lock down. Also, as embryos grow, they start putting off more of their own heat, so you may need to turn your thermostat back as incubation progresses. That should not be necessary, and I don't know why it is so, but I always need to do so with my bimetal thermostat. Any science geeks care to answer this question???

 

[AmyLynn2374]

So I have candles almost all of them. Some of hen are olive green and you can't see inside, but there is no movement. Does that mean there is no hope?

Doesn't look good, but I would still give them 24 hours and recheck.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

You could give them an other 25 hours, as Amy suggests. Some thermostats tend to go wonky when you raise the humidity for lock down. Also, as embryos grow, they start putting off more of their own heat, so you may need to turn your thermostat back as incubation progresses. That should not be necessary, and I don't know why it is so, but I always need to do so with my bimetal thermostat. Any science geeks care to answer this question???

A bator with a thermostat should adjust itself, no?

 

[lazy gardener]

A bator with a thermostat should adjust itself, no?

Of course it should. Which is why I can't quite figure out that I've routinely had to turn it down around day 7, around day 10 - 14, and then occasionally nudge it down there after. Wondering it it's a thermostat issue. Will be interesting to see how the STC compares to the old styrofoam.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Of course it should. Which is why I can't quite figure out that I've routinely had to turn it down around day 7, around day 10 - 14, and then occasionally nudge it down there after. Wondering it it's a thermostat issue. Will be interesting to see how the STC compares to the old styrofoam.

Right. That's weird.

 

[Ridgerunner]

LG, I don’t know what your incubator looks like or how many eggs you have in there but one problem the big boys have, the ones that incubate tens of thousands of eggs at a time, is getting rid of excess heat. The huge volumes of eggs that have put off so much heat they can cook the eggs if they don’t cool them off. But that’s normally later in the incubation, not as early as you describe. Just throwing out a thought.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Quote:
Not quite the same, but I notice this with my wafer thermostat. Maybe not exactly on those specific days...but it usually does need adjusting once in a while, even when nothing's changed externally.

A few eggs are due today...and I had to turn it down just the slightest bit last night. Probably for the same reason Ridgerunner just mentioned...lol.