Incubator had early heat spike

[TexChix]

Ok, I lucked into 18 fertilized eggs and in my eagerness to get them incubating I overlooked that little instruction on my (newly borrowed) forced air hover-bator (with turner!). With the eggs already inside (hindsight 20/20, yes) I turned it on and the temperature quickly rose to 110. It took our little frazzled brain-dead selves at least 30 minutes to get the temperature back down to 100. Now I'm worried that I sterilized all those little mixed breed naken necks and I'll sit here for three weeks only to find out that I was right. It's causing an astounding amount of anxiety, seeing as how six months ago I would have just looked at these as a good carton of eggs to crack for some pancakes and cookies. Now I'm emotionally invested. Have I killd them all? Can anyone give me hope (or mercifully blunt honesty so I can just start again). Should I wait and candle at one week?

Help,

Hot in Texas

 

[Chotii]

Texchik,

I did nearly the same as you, although I don't have a commercially-made incubator, just one I cobbled together myself. I still don't know what happened, because I ran the thing 3 full days and it was stable...and when I put the eggs in, it spiked up.

But here I am, day 3, and I see SOMETHING going on in there...just not veins. Serama says not to worry, she's done worse. But I think really, all either of us can do is wait a few more days and see if anything is happening. Surely nature is not so fickle as to make eggs THAT fragile. What about hens who sneak out and lay eggs in an environment that is not a stable temperature, and the eggs overheat before she actually begins to incubate? Hens manage to hatch eggs somehow, despite the vagaries of nature.

I'm trying to convince myself I didn't just kill some gorgeous crested Polish eggs, of course.

I can update you if/when I start to see real development, as I'm 3 days ahead of you?

 

[TexChix]

Thanks so much. I hear you on the nature can't be so delicate a thing (I used to assure myself when pregnant that all the people walking around on earth got here through a pregnant woman.) Of course Nature can also be fickle and cruel, red in tooth and claw:/but it's good to have some community in anxious times. Let me know what you're seeing and I'll keep fingers crossed for us both.

 

[kingmt]

That doesn't sound good but I don't have a answer for you that is yes or no. I would candle in 1 week & see.

 

[Chotii]

Take heart:

Some (I didn't check them all) of mine appear to be developing normally, veins and all.

The ones with broken air sacs ...I can't tell. Dang post office, that box had a big dent in the corner and goodness knows whether they played basketball with it or something. But 5 were *not* broken-air-celled, and 3 of those looked good this morning, didn't look at the other 2.

 

[TexChix]

Candled four of the 18 eggs over the slide projector last night (I dared no more...). Saw at least three embryos squirming around! Hope renewed.