Fan went out in incubator and temp got to 108 degrees. Will these chicks live?

[gwendalynn28]

Hi. I have 11 eggs set in my homemade incubator. They are golden sebright and silver sebright bantams. Everything has been going well and they are due May 31st. I candled last night and only one out of the dozen was bad. I came home from work today and turned the eggs and checked everything and all was good (at about 5pm). I watched a movie after dinner and didn't pay the incubator any attention. After the movie I walked over and checked and noticed I couldn't hear the fan running. I instantly checked the temp and it was at 108 degrees!! I don't know how long the temperature was this high and I'm wondering if the chicks can survive such high temps. I really hope they are okay. I unplugged the fan and quickly rewired it and tested it and it seems to be working fine now. I am going to keep a closer eye on it though because I am too close to the hatch date to let anything go wrong. These are eggs that were shipped and they are doing really good considering they had to travel through the post office. Any suggestions on what I should do or is there anything I can do but wait and see?

 

[FireTigeris]

Wait and see-

108* F does destroy cells, but if it was a short period of time you may just get an early hatch- it takes a long time for the inside of the egg to change temperature and this is in your favor.

 

[rosiethechicken]

On my last batch, we were out for a full day and saw temp at 110 (at the bottom of the egg) F.
I was too impatient to wait beyond 22 days, but 3 out of 4 did develop and were in various stages
of hatching. None survived, but I think that got to do with me losing patience than temp problem.

So patiently wait out the full term (and little more) and see what happens.

 

[nurse_turtle]

It really depends on how long the eggs were at this temperature. If your thermometer registers the temperature of the air in the bator and not necessarily the temperature inside the eggs, this may also be a good thing because the inside of the eggs may have not reached that temperature. I had an LG styrofoam bator that spiked to 110 overnight and fried 36 shipped eggs, but those eggs were at an earlier stage than yours. Cell proteins begin to break down at 104*F.

 

[Goblnfvr]

Definitely wait and see!
I came home from work one day and the bulb that is used to regulate the WHT I use in my homemade incubator had burnt out and the second bulb had increased the temp to 110F. I had no idea how long the temp had been that high.
Anyways I hoped for the best and kept candling my eggs and I only lost one egg out of the dozen I was incubating. All the remaining 11 hatched.

 

[gwendalynn28]

Its good to hear some success stories after a major temperature spike. It is always frustrating to incubate shipped eggs under normal circumstances, but this really has my hair trying to get a gray in it! I really want some bantams but I seem to have the worst luck. I incubated 15 eggs earlier this spring and only 2 hatched and only one lived. I thought I'd give it one more try. The incubator has actually been running on the cooler end this time around, 97-99 degrees. It was running perfectly the last hatch, at 99-100 degrees. When I set it up again though I couldn't get the temperature set back like I had it. Washing it must have bumped something around. I'm thinking of retiring this incubator since it has done quite a few hatches, even one hatch being 100%. I can't seem to duplicate this incubator though for some reason. I had wanted to build a much larger one but I can't seem to get it just right. I'm happy though because it only cost me $17 to build it and I've gotten lots of chicks from it! I'll let everyone know how the hatch goes next week! I'm going to be biting my nails until then!

 

[gwendalynn28]

I grabbed an egg this morning to candle because I'm curious. It appears the fan has been running fine all night. I looked in the egg and saw the chick moving so I'm really happy about that! I only did one though! I don't really want to candle again until right before lockdown! I've got my fingers crossed that I still get 11 chicks next week! I started with 14 eggs!

 

[gwendalynn28]

I have three new chicks in the incubator this morning! They started pipping last night! I woke up at 2:45 this morning when the first one hatched and made all that noise! I guess a high temperature isn't a death sentence after all! I still have quite a few eggs to go though! I have another pipped now! Maybe it'll all be done by the time I get home from work!

 

[Apriljc]

Congrats! I imagine its a lot like you and I. We can reach into a hot oven briefly or step outside on a sweltering day for a short time--without dying. I think this is because the internal temp of the egg needs to increase to a fatal temp before the chick dies. Sounds like you caught the fan problem just in time!

 

[blessedchick]

Yeah!!! Congratulations! Keep us posted on your success!

I had 8 Silkie eggs roast at 108* for most of the day while I was at work and 3 hatched out just fine. Their names? Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego...