Incubating eggs and a planned power outage...

[holderh]

Hi, This is the first time i have ever incubated eggs and this saturday there is going to be a power outage for 4 hours. What can i do to keep them warm for that long?

Also, i have a hen sitting on 12 eggs as well. Her eggs should hatch abou 2 -3 days before mine. I was hoping that when my eggs hatch as soon as the chicks dry off i could put them under her @ night and she will adopt them. This is the first time she has gone broody and she hasnt been very aggresive towards the other chickens or me so far....she lets me handle tthe eggs but does growl and fluff up her feathers. How likely would it be that she would accept the chicks being about 3 days apart?

Also, I have her in a seperate pen from the other chickens. When the chicks hatch and she is ready to take them out should i let her out with all my chickens? i let them free range for most of the day and then when i am not home i put them in a 16x32 pen and at night they get locked up in the coop. Or should i keep her and the chicks seperate for a couple of months? I know she will most likely protect them, will the flock accept the chicks better if she is with them? Or is it best to keep them seperate till the chicks are a couple of months old? I know that the chicks i am hatching will need to be kept seperated till they get bigger unless she accepts them too.

Thanks

 

[FireTigeris]

First the hen, I would not give her anymore then what she's going to hatch, a day old chicks and a three day old chick will compete for warmth under the hen, she may not take them, It would be the same as sneaking a newborn into a classroom of toddlers- the toddlers would be a danger to the newborn.

When you reintroduce is up to you and the flock, you can try at any time but adult chicken may or may not want to hurt the chicks, even with just 12ish or whatever she does hatch she might not be able or even want to defend them- this is her first time- how old and what breed(s) is she?

Power Outage- for this it is easy, leave it plugged in and cover it just before the outage with warm blankets - do not open the baotr or move the blankets until the power outage is over- after that wait 15 minutes or 30 minutes to remove the blankets- you must remove them for air transfer at that point.

 

[sumi]

Depending on the temperature of the room you've got the incubator in, it should be o.k. I've read stories on this forum of other members who's incubators got turned off by mistake and hens that got up and let the eggs go stone cold and they hatched out fine. We also had a power failure when I did my first hatch. We wrapped blankets around the incubator, leaving just enough of a gap for air flow and the eggs got cold eventually, but they were o.k.

As for your broody, put the chicks under her at night, she will probably adopt them. I got given a chick a few days after one of my hens hatched out hers and as I walked up to her my chick started cheeping and she called it. I put it down by her, she "talked" to it and less than an our later you couldn't tell which was the newbie!

What I do with new moms and chicks is keep them separated for awhile. At least a month. Then I slowly introduce them, giving the mom the option of mingling with the flock or removing her chicks if the rest of the flock gets aggressive. I have seen chickens attack and kill chicks, so I'm staying on the safe side!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t know what incubator you have, but a lot of those incubators hold temperature real well. It’s the core temperature of the egg that matters, not the air temperature. You’ll probably be OK for that long. But what you might do to help keep the temperature up is to add thermal mass if you have the room. Water works great. If you can put maybe Ziploc-type bags filled with water in there, they will help maintain temperatures. When you add them (and I’d do it soon so they can get to the right temperature) have the water about 99 to 100 degrees so you don’t upset the temperature in the incubator too much.

That is really hard to answer. Some broodies imprint on their chicks and will attack other chicks. Some broodies will mother any chicks, even with a larger age difference. There is no way to know what will happen until you try it.

There are a couple of possible problems though. Due to the age difference, the chicks will have different mobility abilities. The young ones may or may not be able to keep up with her and the other chicks the first day. I would not let this stop me, but it is something you may want to watch for.

The other issue is that the broody needs to be able to cover all the chicks. Hens, chicks, and eggs come in different sizes so it is hard to say how many one specific hen can cover. Last summer I gave a hen some incubator chicks. She had no problem raising 15. It’s possible that you can have too many for her.

I let my broodies raise them with the flock. I do coddle them some. After she takes them off the nest, I leave them locked up in a separate place for a couple of days so the chicks can learn to eat and drink without interference from the rest of the flock, but you’ll find many people on here that don’t go through that step. Dad never did. He just left the broodies alone and they managed. His way is how chickens have been raised for thousands of years.

When a broody raises the chicks with the flock, they are integrated with the flock. The adults will accept that the chicks have a right to exist. But the chicks will be at the bottom of the pecking order from the time they are weaned until they are adults. You will find that they stay to themselves in a separate flock as much as they can. This is absolutely normal.

My set-up is a lot like yours and I let my broodies raise them with the flock. They are living animals and you get no guarantees from me as to how they will act, but I think you will be fine.

 

[cva34]

Some Incubator run on !2vdc .Don't know what you got ? But if you got the right kind it could be run on 12vdc car battery...cva34
and or get an inverter to convert 12vdc car battery to 110vac household current .Be sure to get one fits your watt / amp draw+ a little extra WM /radio shack etc

 

[Habibs Hens]

you can buy an inverter

it will convert 12volt car battery power to 110V ac
they use em in caravans

it will be enough for 4 hours or so


edit: goes to show i should read the whole thread before posting sorry

 

[holderh]

Thanks so much for the responses. I had much rather let my hen raise the chicks with the flock, and let them do what the Lord designed them to do but i cant help but love the little fella's and want to prevent them from getting killed if i can. I guess i will wait and see how she acts. I was hoping that if she took care of them the rest of the flock would accept them. I have read other posts of the mothers killing their own chicks so i will watch her for that too. She is a red sex-link and i was suprised that she even went broody. I grew up on a dairy farm so i know some about animal behaviors but we never had chickens so they are new to me.

I wasnt even planning on incubating any eggs but after i bought a dozen for her to sit someone had found out i was wanting some and suprised me with a dozen more so my husband bought me an incubator so we could at least try it out. I guess with 24 potential chicks she wouldnt be able to cover that many? I know some wont make it but i guess that would be too many for her still? I was thinking that when /if she is ready to take them off the nest i would let the flock free range at a seperate time from when i let her so they could see the chicks for a couple of weeks, and then after that i was going to let them free range together, and see how they do would that be a good idea? But when do i let them go to the same coop? As for my incubating chicks i suppose i will have to wait till they are about 2 months old before i can put them with the flock is this correct?

Thanks so much for the answers i have learned so much from this forum!