How does a power outage affect hatching eggs?

[PinkFlamingoFrm]

Our power went out last night, and stayed off for a few hours, I had a chick in the process of zipping, and shes been zipping for 2 days now. Neither chick that is zipping is showing any progress since the power went out and its been about 10 hrs since its been back on. They looks like they are losing energy. Does the power going out affect them to a point where they arent able to finish zipping themselves? At what point should I assist them? Ive never had a power outage while incubating eggs, and this one just had to happen on hatch day.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

everyone says dont interfere but i do. if the zip is of any size not just a pip they are ready more than likly. first i would try more humidity with warm sponge laid next to eggs and if that doesnt help them u can SLOWLY help them finish the zip. i use a disenfected screw because their sharp or sometimes just my finger. if u see any blood, stop. their not ready just flick the shell pieces off like they would not going deep just shell then wet a paper towel and hold it to the membrane u should see clear, no veins, where their pip is take ur finger, no nails and pull it away from chick. like ur streching it over him not ripping. put him back in bator with the damp sponge and he will do the rest. i dont know how this works for other people and i dont want to tell u wrong and they not make it. this is just what i do. let me know if u do please

 

[PinkFlamingoFrm]

thanks, yea, the zip was a complete zip..except for about half an inch.. i did intervene a few hours ago, and im glad I did..they were soooo stuck that their poor heads were glued to their bodies, and their poor little butts were glued in the bottom of the eggs.. it took me a good hour to get all their poor little feathers free.. Ive intervened on many chicks hatching before, usually due to humidity problems, like I open the incubator & dont notice a pip..etc.. Ive read that you shouldnt intervene, but I always do, its just a matter of when...(ive never had one die yet) Im not gonna let a chick die because of what Im "supposed" to do.. ya know? I think alot of it is trial & error & if you see something you know isnt right, go ahead.. but thats my opinion lol. but I wasnt sure what to expect with the power outage and what it would do to the incubation, and usually when I help, they havent zipped that much & then just stop.. just found it really odd. I opened all of the eggs that I were sure were dead and they had all pipped their membrane & couldnt break the shell, and had suffocated.. im assuming due to the temp drop? because they all looked the exact same.. im not sure. There is one more egg that is alive, so hopefully the chick hatches soon.

 

[12chickens]

I also help mine out too if they take to long because once they poke a hole in the shell they start to dry out and they can't move around in the shell and to punch through. I wait a day if they start and hours go by (morning to evening or evening to morning) nothing happens they are having trouble. it is better to try and fail then no do anything i say. at least if they die you can say you tried.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

i read some where that the outages depends on how many eggs and how long its off. they start making their own heat at the end and can hang on a little while and if there very young they can go back into a suspended state.i lost power this spring for about 2 hrs with same problem and i did the only thing i could think of to keep it warm. i alcoholed my breast and put the egg under it until the elect came back on.we bout took a nap and it was fine.haha thats going a little above and beyound. but at my age they gotta be good for something.

 

[PinkFlamingoFrm]

thats my theory too..id rather try & fail then not try at all... but I also tried to give my micro pig cpr when she didnt wake up from her seizure..(she was cold by the time i found her) so maybe I try a little too hard sometimes.. in hindsight it was incredibly gross to even think of doing..but hey..it was a spur of the moment thing.. I did go through a full bottle of mouth wash afterwards..


hahahah omg.. it took me 3 times of reading that to understand what you were saying!! haha.. I kept reading "breath" and wondered why you were alcoholing it hahha

now I get it!! thats creative! but I dont think I could have fit 20 there lol..



but yea, i was trying to think of ways to keep it warm..but everything I could think of required electricity, and I didnt want to open the incubators & lose heat. we did shut the window to that room & close vents on incubators. One incubator had about 20 serama eggs in & one had about 40 quail eggs in. A 3rd just had random eggs picked up from my farm, but I havent candled them since, Im hoping they are still ok. My fiance was too busy trying to figure out what was going on..so we went on a road trip through the mountain road to make sure there was no accident (its a small small town & not much traffic, especially at 4 am.) and we had to find somewhere to get service to call the electric company because our network extender was down, so we had no service.. Then all of our neighbors were outside (its a small nosy town lol), so we just ended up talking to them for a while & then headed up the road for breakfast to keep us awake.. I didnt have much time to mess with the eggs .... He wouldnt go back to sleep because he was afraid he wouldnt get up.. I hope it never happens again.. I never made it to bed till 7 am..
quail hatch day was today, but they seem to always be late for me..so Im gonna give them till tomorrow & then maybe open one & see whats going on...

 

[LTygress]

Helping out during the zip doesn't really hurt them at all. They are already coming out of the egg, the blood vessels are disconnected, and the yolk is absorbed. Just be VERY gentle when you help them at this point, because the yolk sac is VERY fragile on their bellies, and can still be broken easily - which will kill them. But otherwise, there is VERY LITTLE danger in helping them get out of the egg at this point.