Incubator temperature is out of control!

[Frizzlett98]

I have a Little Giant still air incubator that I just bought an air fan for. We put the eggs in last Wednesday and everything's been fine until today. We turned the eggs and I candled one of the eggs because I think it's a quitter, but we're giving it a few more days to know for sure. We closed it up and the temperature was of course low from opening the incubator so I turned up the heat. We didn't know but the incubator was at 103 degrees for about an hour. We've been working for over 2 hours trying to get a steady temperature like it was before. It goes down to 97 then we turn it up very little and it shoots up to 103 within 2 minutes. Then we turn it down very little and it goes to 101 for a minute and then back own to 97 it goes. We're not sure if it's the incubator or the built in thermometer. The thermometer has to be somewhat accurate because our eggs are developing but could this problem be the thermometer any way? We have places to go and can't take a chance leaving it alone and the temperature getting too high or too low. We have 3 eggs in there from one of our Silver Sebright hens that was killed by a possum last week and we want them to hatch so we can raise her babies to remember her by. Please help! What can we do? We can't get a new thermometer right now and have none available around the house.

 

[Frizzlett98]

Will 103 or 97 degrees kill the babies?

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Hi when you open your incubator leave the thermostat as it was when it was settled and holding the correct temp. By turning it up when you closed it back up it will have turned the heat up. When putting the lid back on it will take a while for it to come back up to temperature try not to be tempted to turn it up. It won't harm your eggs if it takes a while to come back up to temp. I have a Brinsea and it has the cooling option on that turns the heat off for an hour a day. If it were me I would put the temp back to your original setting and leave it for an hour to settle. Hope this helps and good luck .

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

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Will 103 or 97 degrees kill the babies?
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In my opinion no if it was not for a sustain length of time.

 

[Frizzlett98]

Ok it has settled down for now. I forgot that my brother had turned the eggs so after I candled the one, I turned the temp up not realizing it had only been 5 minutes since he turned them. Oops! We are sitting at around 101 right now. We are trying to keep the temp between 99.5 and 101. Since the thermometer might be off a little we usually keep it around 100-101. My sister and I bought some eggs back in March and we didn't have the air fan then so it was difficult. Out of 14, none hatched. Only 1 developed but we cracked it thinking it was a dud. Now out of 7, 5 developed. We had one that wasn't fertile and 1 maybe 2 quitters. I don't take many chances with throwing out eggs because, what if it is actually alive? So I candled the first "quitter" and made sure there was a red ring (as I call it the Red Ring of Death) before I cracked it but it either quit on day 4 or it was alive on day 5 and I killed it. :/ Does anyone know if an embryo will move if you crack an egg while it's alive? If so, then I killed it

 

[Frizzlett98]

We've decided to skip our last 2 turns for today so the incubator won't get out of control again. They've been turned 3 times already today. I have a chart to make sure they get turned every time. 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm, and 8pm.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Yes I'm sure they will be fine with three turns. I also just had a thought with forced air fan incubator your temps need to be lower than with still air. I have forced air and I incubate at 37.5 centigrade I'm not sure what that equates to in Fahrenheit. Also I'm afraid to say that if you saw movement then the embryo was probably alive. Don't beat yourself up about it though these things happen. And we all live and learn from our mistakes I know I have.

 

[Frizzlett98]

I didn't beat myself up really. I was just disappointed because it was one of the eggs from the SS that was killed. I won't let happen again lol. I'll try to get the temp a little lower. Thanks for your help!