Sponsored Post I'm incubating - what do I do if the power goes out?

[retlaw]

Last year I was away for a few weeks and the wife had the power go down twice.
I ran the incubator and she didn't.
She couldn't get the generator started up for a long time.
It was just after the half way point for the last few dozen turkey eggs.
Only had two survive of the batch. Day 31. Had to help them out of the shell and both needed their legs straddled.
The rest of them I performed autopsy to see what happened.

It looked like the cold slowed down their development time.
It looked like they were days away.
Would they have gone another few days and hatched out fully developed I will never know.

I learned a lot from that experience.
You learn more from your failures then your success's.

 

[Wil SC]

So this may be an odd question, but the human body is around 98.6*, so has anyone used their body heat to get eggs thru a power outage? I imagine using a blanket on your belly and laying on the couch you could keep them somewhat warm.

 

[bburn]

Will SC....yes. There was a lady, a couple of years ago that hatched an egg in her bra!! It was like the last egg and the electric went out! And yes body heat would work. I can see me laying down and covering myself with eggs!! Looking towards an ice storm here starting tonight. Heading to town shortly to get hand warmers!!

 

[Thespoiledchicken]

Great article!

If anyone is using a GQF 1588 incubator they sell an attachment that hooks up to a 12 volt battery that will run your incubator. I had to use this a couple weeks ago when we had a blizzard and lost power.

The attachment is $15.00 sold through GQF's website. You need to buy it beforehand though

Trish

 

[EACWOODCRAFTS]

We lost power here in Maine for 2 days in January. I floated the incubator in my hot tub and used the woodstove to replenish the hot water as it cooled down.Still had an eighty percent hatch with bantam phoenixs.

 

[cmom]

We lost power here in Maine for 2 days in January. I floated the incubator in my hot tub and used the woodstove to replenish the hot water as it cooled down.Still had an eighty percent hatch with bantam phoenixs.

There goes to show you, where there is a will there is a way...

 

[Penny Hen]

I have a pay as you go system of electricity. I prepay for it. One day I forgot to get the payment in on time and the electricity went off. I quickly ran all the available hot water out into jars and placed them inside the incubator so It wouldn't drop too much while I went and paid for more time.

 

[sham]

i'm from mauritius, island in the Indian Ocean.
Just had an egg hatched on Monday 9 September at 3 a.m(local time).first time witnessing an egg hatching. was waiting for others to hatch, even saw the eggs vibrate. but unfortunately, there was a power cut of about 2 hours and a chick did break the shell. but it had difficulty to turn in the shell and break the shell. i laid the egg on its side to facilitate the hatching but unfortunately, the chick died, like being suffocated by a liquid. i was very sad. i think it was because of the power cut that this happened. now even after 21 days the other eggs supposed to hatch( was even 'vibrating before the power cut') are not hatching and i'm anxious whether they died or not.
Can anyone help please?
Can i break the shell or should i wait for the chick to break it?
Or should i discard the eggs rather, as no hatching will take place?

 

[cmom]

i'm from mauritius, island in the Indian Ocean.
Just had an egg hatched on Monday 9 September at 3 a.m(local time).first time witnessing an egg hatching. was waiting for others to hatch, even saw the eggs vibrate. but unfortunately, there was a power cut of about 2 hours and a chick did break the shell. but it had difficulty to turn in the shell and break the shell. i laid the egg on its side to facilitate the hatching but unfortunately, the chick died, like being suffocated by a liquid. i was very sad. i think it was because of the power cut that this happened. now even after 21 days the other eggs supposed to hatch( was even 'vibrating before the power cut') are not hatching and i'm anxious whether they died or not.
Can anyone help please?
Can i break the shell or should i wait for the chick to break it?
Or should i discard the eggs rather, as no hatching will take place?

I was 2 weeks into incubation. The temp in the incubator was 78 degrees when I discovered it. I put the incubator on a battery pack with an inverter and brought the temp back up. I was really worried but I still had a good hatch.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

just so ya'll know there is nothing new under the Sun here is a link to how people incubated eggs in the past. I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/focus/contents/ceva/OnlineBulletins/ob_2005/Article-No2-Sept05.pdf