Help! Power outage Day 20

[Tomnmisty]

Hello all. I have a chick emergency. It’s day 20 of my incubation. We have lost power from the Midwest snow storm. The chicks have pipped a hole thru the egg. They are vocal and moving. But without power I’m not able to maintain humidity. I have placed hot hand heat packs with the eggs. I have them holding at 99.4 temp but humidity is down to 42. Any ideas to help save these chicks.

 

[Farmgirl1878]

If you have a way of heating water (gas stove or grill, fireplace, bonfire outside, camp stove, etc.), you could try to raise the humidity with steam if the room, or on towels placed around the incubator. Any neighbors with generators?

 

[fire370]

Yes, steaming hot water. Do not open the lid. Go through the vent holes if you can. As said above, towels around to insulate as much as possible.

 

[Tomnmisty]

Update! First of all thanks for your suggestions. This was our first attempt to hatch 2 eggs from our little flock. We have 3 hens and a rooster currently and hoping to get a few more hens and rehome the rooster. We have a place to take him and a new rooster or roosters. Anyway. The power came on about an hour after the post, but unfortunately the flickers of the power either in the going off or back on fried the control board on the incubator. Display just erratically flashes and no fans or heat. I know at this point I have to do something so I grab a foam cooler and a heat lamp. I get the cooler set under the lamp, cut a hole in the lid and cover it with a piece of plexiglass. So light can get in but humidity can’t get out. I then set a Tupperware bowl with a sponge directly under that hole and the light. We used a kurrig to get steaming water to put in the bowl this got the humidity up to 50. We removed the sponge and microwave it for 45 seconds. That got it over 60% and temp was 99. We then opened the incubator quickly put a warm damp cloth over the eggs and transferred to this new Frankenstein incubator. Temp in the original incubator was down to 95 and humidity was about 40. Anyway the chicks stayed very active for the next few hours opening their pip holes a bit more and very talkative. By 9 we had the “incubator” holding 98-100 degrees and 58-65 humidity by just microwaving the sponge every 3-4 hours. Last time we checked on them was 2 am. Wife woke at 6 am to check on things and we have two happy healthy hatched chicks.

 

[fire370]

Update! First of all thanks for your suggestions. This was our first attempt to hatch 2 eggs from our little flock. We have 3 hens and a rooster currently and hoping to get a few more hens and rehome the rooster. We have a place to take him and a new rooster or roosters. Anyway. The power came on about an hour after the post, but unfortunately the flickers of the power either in the going off or back on fried the control board on the incubator. Display just erratically flashes and no fans or heat. I know at this point I have to do something so I grab a foam cooler and a heat lamp. I get the cooler set under the lamp, cut a hole in the lid and cover it with a piece of plexiglass. So light can get in but humidity can’t get out. I then set a Tupperware bowl with a sponge directly under that hole and the light. We used a kurrig to get steaming water to put in the bowl this got the humidity up to 50. We removed the sponge and microwave it for 45 seconds. That got it over 60% and temp was 99. We then opened the incubator quickly put a warm damp cloth over the eggs and transferred to this new Frankenstein incubator. Temp in the original incubator was down to 95 and humidity was about 40. Anyway the chicks stayed very active for the next few hours opening their pip holes a bit more and very talkative. By 9 we had the “incubator” holding 98-100 degrees and 58-65 humidity by just microwaving the sponge every 3-4 hours. Last time we checked on them was 2 am. Wife woke at 6 am to check on things and we have two happy healthy hatched chicks.

That’s awesome! Great job!

 

[TravelerColleen]

We are incubating 3 eggs for my niece’s classroom. We are on day 19-20, they are in lockdown and the power went out overnight for about 5-6 hours! The temp was 69° when she went in this morning! Anyone have a idea what our odds of a hatch are???