Eggs cold for 24 hours....viable embryos...UPDATE 6/8 hatched.

[pgpoultry]

I hope this will help to encourage those of us who have found broody hens off cold eggs and incubators where someone has switched off the power/prolonged power cuts etc.

Well my last batch of chicks are approaching 3 months, so I had the foolish urge to hatch again.
I bought 6 eggs (shipped eggs to mix bloodlines) and added 2 of my own.
Already, I am knowing this is a mistake. I don't need the chicks, I don't do postal eggs. Bitter experience tells me that even if the eggs started off good, they are scrambled by the time cheerful postie has bought them to us having driven 12 miles from the depot in his van-without-shock-absorbers, up a road full of pot holes at speeds approaching 60 miles an hour.(Wouldn't like to claim he breaks the speed limit!!!) The last 200 yards is euphemistically called our 'drive'...a deeply rutted dirt track with the massive holes.

However, the 'mistake' eggs arrived next day, clean, marked 'fragile', well packaged, and handed over carefully by said smiling postie.
Rest for 24 hours, pointy end down, into incubator...looking good. 6 days on thread veins in all 6 bought eggs and my 2 added eggs. Way Hay...
Then tragedy. Hubby messing around in the room (only used for storage) on the top floor, must have pulled out the lead. Found over 24 hours later...stone cold, incubator temp. inside 14 degrees (would have been colder overnight), humidity 37%. DISASTER...or so I thought.

Nothing to lose by switching on the incubator again, so I did.

A week later there are at least 6 viable embryos... a 7th probably

Now I am not claiming they will all hatch...far from. BUT.....worth trying, hey??

Sandie

 

[Crabella]

Nothing to lose at this point. Go for it and let us know what happens...

 

[carrlr]

Definately worth trying. Best of wishes.

 

[Frizzle Farmer]

They are little fighters, keep us posted

 

[quibs]

its always worth a try!

Keep us posted on how their doing

 

[Smokin Silkies]

Similiar thing just happened to me. Not sure what happened to my incubator but eggs were cold. Been like that since yesterday after 5pm sometime. I didn't notice til about 9pm. Temp was at 75 but eggs werent warm. Figured they were dead so I didn't bother running to the shed to search for the other bator. Then I saw your post a little bit ago & ran to the shed. Now I got the bator running, about to put my 40 eggs in there & hopefully I'll have some alive. They were only in the bator for a day before this happened. You gave me hope!!! Thanks!!!

 

[georgia531]

I have hope now too !! my power went out last night at 11 pm and remembering something i read on here, i plugged the holes, wrapped incubator in a blanket and went to bed.. at 6 am i got up and power was still off.. incubator temp was 85... heartbroken... i had 15 EE eggs and 25 seabrights and serama cross eggs... plus the seabrights had been murdered by a predator, and so i was hopeful to have some of their eggs hatch.. sent DH to his son's house with the incubator, plugged it in at his house and at noon brought it back home when the lights came on.. alot of rolling around might have been worse than the temp dip ?? but at least now i have hope!!! hope yours hatch

 

[pgpoultry]

Browneyebuttafly and Georgia531, you may still have good hatches. Browneyebuttafly, if your eggs were on the first day of incubation, then there is unlikely to be a problem at all. Georgia531, not sure what stage of incubation you were at, but they didn't get VERY cold, so hopefully you will have some hatch, too. By comparison mine were just about at the week mark (the first 7 days being much less critical than the last 14 for temperature and humidity). Mine probably were without heat, turning, and in circumstances of low humidity for over a day. Our night-time temperature would not have been over 50 degrees F. Yet, things look OK, in fact, better than I often have at this stage of an uninterupted incubation.

SO....keep up your hopes, and lets all keep each other posted as to the outcome.

Anybody else to join the 'Fingers Crossed Group'?

 

[cmom]

I lost power once 2 weeks into incubation. The temp in the incubator was 25C . I put the incubator on a battery pack with an inverter and brought the temp back up. I still had a good hatch. I am a believer!!! I bought the battery pack and inverter at Walmart.

 

[georgia531]

Mine were at I think Day 12 or 13...I am going to gather quart jars to add hot water to if this ever happens with babies.... and baby food jars or other small jars that will fit into bator if it ever happens again. Im hopeful, but if I dont get a hatch, it wasnt meant to be. Will be so sad not to hatch those seabrights, but nothing i can do about it now. Good Luck everybody! I should know by next Wednesday. Im not much for candleing, i have never seen movement. I can only tell if they are empty.