Power Outage And High Temps, Is There Any Hope????

[Yvonne37894]

My hatcher got down to 93 for a day, then went to 104 for several hours.
only 5 of 39 hatched , most were developed but did not absorb yoke, I think it cooked
My bad did not pay close enough attention to it
I think you will do much better.
good luck!!

 

[Akane]

Still airs are run a degree higher than forced airs up to 102F anyway. Very few thermometers used by people here are accurate enough for that .7 off so they may not have even gone too high.

Cooling is safer than too hot and if in doubt it's better to run the incubator a bit lower than risk running it a bit too high. Adjust it after you see if they hatch on time or not. More eggs die from high temps than power outages. There was actually an article that listed the average time it takes for an egg on week 2 to die at various temperatures but I didn't keep it. Eggs will continue to incubate down to 96F for days. I've put some in tilted cartons in my still air where the coolest point had to be 97F in order to keep the warmest point from going too high and did not have a lower hatch rate. Plenty of eggs have survived 70-80s for hours and I had some sit in 60s overnight with every last egg hatching eventually even if they were a little late. High temps will kill quickly. 103F can kill within the day. 104 or more can kill within hours. That's if your thermometer is accurate and the egg actually gets that warm inside. If you are measuring air temp remember there is usually a delay because the inside of the egg does not heat and cool as fast as the incubator air and most thermometers used are only accurate to +/- 1F. That's one reason some people have had eggs survive despite very high readings on the thermometer. The egg itself probably didn't reach that temp yet. Same for many power outages especially if the incubator isn't opened.

 

[newchickens2009]

After This Hatch I Think I Am Going To Try And Get A Fan For My Hova-bator Incub.