I had a power outage on about day 12 also when I wasn't home for about 5 hours. My eggs were 78 degrees when the power returned.
I expected nothing to hatch, they were Silkies. I ended up getting a 50% hatch, which was my worst ever! One hatched with it's yolk still out and didn't survive. The remaining 4... 3 had bent toes and 1 is perfect. I never had bent toes before either... and can only attribute it to the temp fluctuation. My first experience with bent toe... I raised them, we will eat the boys (yes Silkies!). One gal is going to a pet home where she won't have to perch. But I can already see her limping and holding weight off that foot at under 12 weeks old.
While it *may* be possible to fix bent toes or splay leg... I will be culling at hatch in the future since I breed for health, vigor, and quality. And I have a harder time culling females that I know can lay perfectly well. I can't keep the crippled or possibly genetically deficient birds among my flock and don't want to push them off on others (even if they agree) where it could come back on the reputation of my stock.
The whole bent toe thing was a huge learning experience for me. As well, we have outages ALL the time!
We were planning to have a generator installed that we would have to go out and start, thinking that's no bid deal. This has taught me that it WILL benefit to me to have it auto switch for the times when I'm NOT home. SOOO glad I learned that before making the investment!
One possibility for future instance... would be to let your neighbor know you are incubating, and if you are going to be gone for a while maybe ask them to call you if there happens to be an outage.
Note the temp in my bator was 78, but that doesn't mean it was the core temp inside the eggs. And they hatched on the day they were supposed to, possibly a few hours late but not significantly.
I personally think Silkies have been my hardest to hatch... so maybe other breeds will do even better than my 50% power outage rate. And 75% deformities.
Hope all is well!
