I'm on day 14 and my electric is out.

[weirdones]

I'm on day 14 and our electric just went out. Any suggestions

 

[Zapa]

Welcome to every ones worst nightmare. What kind of incubator? If it is a large Styrofoam one like Genesis or Little Giant, you can probably alternate hot water bottles as long as your hot water holds out and monitor closely regulate temp with cracking the lid a tiny bit and pulling vent plugs.

If it is a short term outage this should get you through.

Don't panic too awful much eggs are resilient. Broody hens do get off the nest to drink and short period fluctuations will not be the end of the world. I will keep thinking on this and let you know if i come up with anything else, but incubator model may help others with ideas as well.

 

[Zapa]

Found this right here

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/689897/im-incubating-what-do-i-do-if-the-power-goes-out

 

[weirdones]

I covered with a big fluffy bath roan. It's s Rite Farm plastic tub type bator. With no power no water pump to pump it. Lol. Thought about going to a neighbors to plug it in but didn't know if they would get to shook up.

 

[WalnutHill]

Yep. just preserve as much heat as you can, and hot water filled jars or bottles on the outside will even help (under the robe).

You don't need nice clean water for that, trough water, pond water, whatever you can warm up.

 

[Zapa]

Keep this in your back pocket if things start to get critically cold. There is a plastic valve on the bottom of your hot water heater that you can extract hot water from if needed. Most take a flat headed screwdriver to open and close. Water will stay very hot for days in modern heaters. Unless you have a point of use heater....then scratch that idea.

Other ideas I've come up with sitting here would be, chemical type hand warmer packs, first aid kit hot packs, Coleman pocket warmer, or battery powered electric socks.

lol just throwing stuff at yo as it pops into my head. Wouldn't take much of a heat source to keep the incubator warm inside.

 

[WalnutHill]

I'd just toss a couple of sticks in the wood stove and slide the tray of eggs underneath...

Or build a fire in the fireplace, let it die down, then set the incubator on the warm hearth.

Or warm my oven with the pilot, then set the tray in the oven.

Or just pile on the blankets, wait for the power, and expect a slightly late hatch.

 

[weirdones]

Our house is all electric. No fire place no pilot on the stove. Hot water tank upstairs in the laundry room closet. Need a hose to get water out without flooding the whole house. Lol. The electric co is here now. Hopefully it won't be long. Need to come up with a backup plan incase it happens again.

 

[MontserratChick]

My first experience hatching chicks was when my husband came home with some from a feral hen's nest that he had disturbed when working on his land. He wanted to eat them but we had no idea if or how long they'd been incubated for. So when I got home after a few hours we put them in a bowl with a towel around them and kept them in the oven with the pilot light on and the door ajar. Did this for a few days until we could borrow an incubator. After a week in the incubator, 2 out of the 4 hatched, and the other two hadn't got chicks or embryos in them, so we called that a 100% success rate. The point of this rambling story is that our eggs must have been nearly two thirds of the way through incubation when we subjected them to a lot of temperature changes and some very imprecise semi-baking but they survived and hatched, so I wouldn't worry too much about any damage done to them by being a few degrees out for a few hours. In dire straits, remember that the human body is the perfect temperature for incubating eggs. I heard of a woman who incubated one in her bra for the whole 3 weeks. Not sure how she slept though...

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I went and bought Therma care heating packs (for aching muscles, found at the drug store) to have just in case I ever have a power outtage. Thankfully and knock on wood, I haven't had to use them yet, but I have them as back up just in case. I don't know how well it would work, but I figured it was worth a try.