POWER OUTTAGE! Will this hurt?

[Crickett]

Last night we had a power outage that lasted about four hours. The temp in my LG got down to about 94. Then when the power came back on, it started to climb again. My eggs are supposed to hatch this week-end. Will that dip in temperature hurt them? What should I do, if anything?

 

[Fay at Frizzled Feathers]

Just let them continue the coarse and hope for the best .Yes , sometimes it causes them to die but other times you can still have a decent hatch , so hopefully you are one of those that will still have a decent hatch.
Our power went out for 6 hours , due to storm , lost almost everything that was in them

but it does happen at times.

Heres hoping you have a great hatch !

Fay

 

[perrym1962]

My guess would be you will not be able to tell a difference. I have had this happen before and it had little affect, especially no lower than that for that short of a time span.

 

[Ruditchka]

You should be fine, especially at this late stage. Happy Hatching!

 

[btrent94]

i hope yours are okay ..

where i live we get power outages all the time .. atleast once a week and what i do is a put a nice sized glass jar filled with water and close it nice and tight .. that way it gets nice and hot so when the power goes out the jar is still giving off some heat

that way it only drops about 1-2 degrees for a 4 hour power outage

 

[crtrlovr]

my power went out while I was away, and the temp in the bator was 74 degrees (or 70 something). it took a few hrs. for them to come back up to incubating temperature. The eggs had been in about 4 days. I hadn't candled them, and didn't candle them through the whole 21 days. They're hatching fine, with 7 of the 20 out, others rocking and pipping. *Whew!*

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Info on power outages during Incubation.
From- A Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow

The more valuable your hatching eggs are, the more likely it is that the electricity will go out during incubation. If you have an uninterruptable power source (UPS) for your computer or other electronic equipment, consider disconnecting the usual equipment and using the UPS to power your incubator. If the outage comtinues beyond its capacity to keep your incubator running, or you don't have an UPS, open the incubator and let the eggs cool until the power goes back on.

Trying to keep the eggs warm is likely to cause abnormal embryo development. Furthermore, if you close the vents or wrap the incubator with blankets in your attempt to keep eggs warm, a greater danger than temperature loss is oxygen deprivation. Developing embryos use up oxygen rather rapidly, and the oxygen level may soon fall below that necessary to keep them alive.

As soon as the power goes back on, close the incubator and continue operating it as usual. The effect of the outage on your hatch will depend on how long the power was out and on how long the eggs had been incubated before the outage. A power failure of up to 12 hours may not significally affect the hatch (except to delay it somewhat), especially if the outage occurred during the early incubation, when cooled embryos naturally tend to go dormant. Embryos that are close to term generate enough heat to carry them through a short-term outage.