Lowest temp/longest time outage?

[coleridgedane]

I've read a bunch of old posts here about power outages during incubation. I had 2 hrs outage with 12 eggs in incubator & 12 in lockdown. I saw temps down to 83 in the hatcher, better in the 'bator. Obviously the temp was droppping slowly before I moved them to a different power source. Ive read that most all others have had similar if not worse situations.

My question is what's the longest time/lowest temps do you think is possible without harm? Does it matter if they're 20 days vs 14?

 

[juliechick]

My bator got down to 63˚ once for a few hours and all the chicks hatched anyway. They were about mid-way through their development. Seems to me that chicks are more vulnerable closer to the date of hatch, but I'm not sure.

 

[bairo]

I dont think the lowest temp matters as much as the total time under 99. In addition those at day 18 or later will fair much better than those in the bator. Mom will leave the nest up to about 15 minutes (usually less). In cooler weather even 5 minutes of mom being off can bring the temp down pretty far, but she is back on them fairly quickly. Eggs are most sensitive to this change in the first 14 days with each day younger having a greater effect. What commonly happens in your case is the eggs may delay hatching a day but are hopefully ok.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Just watching broodies - they leave the nest an hour or 2 every day. I think a temp dip is much less harmful than spikes.