Power goes out for 4 hours on incubator help i am new to incubators.

[youngchooklover]

Well this is the second power outage i have had with my incubator.
It is my first ever hatching with a incubator. (with chicken eggs)
I had to put them out side in the sun and that was all we had.
My first power outage went for 3 hours second 4 hours.
One good thing was the incubator said it would be best if we put a blanket on it which was good.

Does any one know how long chicken eggs can go with out power?
and do you have any basic advice for incubating?

Thanks

 

[youngchooklover]

It is a 10 egg incubator by the way.

 

[bobbi-j]

How far into the incubation are you? You could candle the eggs to see if they're still viable, or you could just let it be, keep it going until the time is up and see what happens.

 

[lazy gardener]

That all depends on what day of incubation you are on. Generally, chicken eggs in incubation are a lot more resilient than we think they are... as long as their incubation temperature is in a good range. They will survive the occasional outage. There have been instances of a hen being off the nest for up to 24 hours and the eggs still hatched. The bigger worry is that your temp might be off by a degree or two throughout the incubation period. That can lead to deformities in the chick, or death. IMO, these issues are most often caused by a faulty thermometer, or the person managing the incubator has a twitchy finger and keeps fiddling with the thermostat. (I stand guilty of this carge!!!) Best to get the incubator running steady at your target temp for a couple of days before putting the eggs in. So, what day of incubation are they on? After an outage, if it's after day 7, you can wait for them to get back up to temp, give them a couple more hours and then candle to see if the babies are still moving. Just remember, even with a healthy well developing embryo, you may not always see movement. Just like a human fetus, they are not moving ALL the time! I wish you the best with your hatch.

 

[youngchooklover]

The tem was and is 38.2c one was on the fourth day and one on the 12th.
I do not know how to candle can you tell me a bit.

 

[lazy gardener]

I don't think you have anything to worry about. Is yours a still air, or does it have a fan? The best way for you to learn about candling is to do a thread search in the top blue bar under search discussions. Type in any subject, and you'll get pages of pertinent threads that will have info regarding your questions. You'll see some nice still life pics, as well as some videos, and charts about embryo developmental stages and sizes.

 

[youngchooklover]

Thanks and it a fan incubator