- Jun 11, 2014
- 1
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If anyone is reading this - in an emergency situation if you only a few eggs in an incubator and are up for it you could try this.
We had a big storm last night and the winds got to 175 kilometers per hour and the power went out around 1am. I have 10 eggs 14 days along in an incubator. They were not that warm when I got to them and cooling fast.
Not having access to a generator, hot water bottle and not able to buy anything of use at that time of night around here, I found a fine marino wool blanket and placed a stretch of it directly on my bare tummy and over one of my arms which I rested against my tummy and put the eggs in a row along my arm and then placed another layer of blanket over them before placing my other arm and hand gently across the eggs the other way and then the rest of the blanket bunched up over my arms to insulate as much as possible - then I hopped back into bed!. Things heated up really quickly.
Whenever I needed to do anything - bathroom, make breakfast etc I would make part of the blanket like a bag to carry the eggs, also bundled in the rest of the blanket, to a place where I could put them down. Then I would use another part of the blanket to effectively make a pillow for them to rest on and then put the rest of the blanket on top to keep the heat in. I left them for up to 20 mins at a time and they were nice and toastie each time when I came back.
The power was out for 12hours in the end. I candled a couple at about the 6 hour mark and they were moving and when the power came back on I candled a couple again and they were moving too - so back into the incubator they went.
Interestingly, every now and then I could feel one of the eggs very distinctively sort of moving, so I would adjust its position and inevitably when I did so, I would find that it was an egg which was positioned in a way where it was not as warm as the others. I enjoyed these little signals and it helped me stop worrying quite so much about heating them evenly - I still found myself checking constantly, but did worry less.
One other thing that I found interesting was that until the heat really amped up the eggs still felt cool to my touch. I got my son to touch them a couple of times when they felt cool to me and I felt that I was not succeeding in keeping them warm and each time he said that they were really warm.
I am sure this would work for very young chicks as well.
These are my first clutch and I was very keen not to lose them.
We had a big storm last night and the winds got to 175 kilometers per hour and the power went out around 1am. I have 10 eggs 14 days along in an incubator. They were not that warm when I got to them and cooling fast.
Not having access to a generator, hot water bottle and not able to buy anything of use at that time of night around here, I found a fine marino wool blanket and placed a stretch of it directly on my bare tummy and over one of my arms which I rested against my tummy and put the eggs in a row along my arm and then placed another layer of blanket over them before placing my other arm and hand gently across the eggs the other way and then the rest of the blanket bunched up over my arms to insulate as much as possible - then I hopped back into bed!. Things heated up really quickly.
Whenever I needed to do anything - bathroom, make breakfast etc I would make part of the blanket like a bag to carry the eggs, also bundled in the rest of the blanket, to a place where I could put them down. Then I would use another part of the blanket to effectively make a pillow for them to rest on and then put the rest of the blanket on top to keep the heat in. I left them for up to 20 mins at a time and they were nice and toastie each time when I came back.
The power was out for 12hours in the end. I candled a couple at about the 6 hour mark and they were moving and when the power came back on I candled a couple again and they were moving too - so back into the incubator they went.
Interestingly, every now and then I could feel one of the eggs very distinctively sort of moving, so I would adjust its position and inevitably when I did so, I would find that it was an egg which was positioned in a way where it was not as warm as the others. I enjoyed these little signals and it helped me stop worrying quite so much about heating them evenly - I still found myself checking constantly, but did worry less.
One other thing that I found interesting was that until the heat really amped up the eggs still felt cool to my touch. I got my son to touch them a couple of times when they felt cool to me and I felt that I was not succeeding in keeping them warm and each time he said that they were really warm.
I am sure this would work for very young chicks as well.
These are my first clutch and I was very keen not to lose them.
