So I have one of those hovabator incubators, and a little digital thermometer/hygrometer from incubator warehouse. This one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-EGG-incubator-THERMOMETER-Hygrometer-Remote-/270728590583
Anyway, my girlfriend surprises me with some Icelandic chicken eggs on Tuesday, so I fire up the incubator to get it up to temperature before putting the eggs in. Thermometer is dead after sitting in the box since last year, so I run out and get some new batteries that match the one I found in there, seems to turn on and work fine. Even after a day of running on max blast, on wednesday the thermometer is only reading 97-98 degrees... and then thermometer dies later that day. I figure maybe I got a bad battery, stick a new one in, still reads 97-98, so I decide to give the incubator another overnight to get up to temp. On Thursday, still read 97-98, but I don't want these eggs getting stale, so I stick them in figuring that its better than nothing, and might buy me time to diagnose and fix the heating element problem.
Well, right before I go to bed last night, thermometer goes dead again, and I'm out of batteries. What the hell. Not having anything else on hand, I stick a meat thermometer through one of the vents, the long metal probe reaches down about as far as the digital probe had, seems like a good short term set up while I get a new fancy thermometer. But I'll admit I didn't bother waiting to see what temperature it stabilized at...
Well I wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, glance at the incubator.... 110!!!! Ahhhhh! I turn down the incubator, get it to stabliize around 100-102ish on the meat thermometer.... but now I'm terrified by a multitude of bad possibilities!
A) The incubator really was 110 degrees, the digital thermometer was just reading wrong, and I cooked my eggs too hot for about 12 hours before turning them down
B) The incubator really was 98 degrees on max blast, the digital was reading correctly despite whatever is wrong with it draining batteries, and the meat thermometer is not designed to accurately read air temperatures, meaning now I've turned by eggs down to some dangerously low temperature
C) Neither the digital nor the meat thermometer are reading anything remotely correct, and I'm just playing russian roulette with temperatures
Obviously, I need to get on ordering a new (accurate) digital thermometer stat, but in the meantime how screwed are my eggs? I imagine eggs are a little more stable and hardy early in the incubation process than they are later once a chick's organs start developing... will a short blast of 110 cook them? Will a day or two or mid 90's freeze them? I've had eggs accidentally hatch in a compost heap before, and broody hens hatch eggs in all sorts of different climates without being scientists, surely I have a little bit of wiggle room here right?
Anyway, my girlfriend surprises me with some Icelandic chicken eggs on Tuesday, so I fire up the incubator to get it up to temperature before putting the eggs in. Thermometer is dead after sitting in the box since last year, so I run out and get some new batteries that match the one I found in there, seems to turn on and work fine. Even after a day of running on max blast, on wednesday the thermometer is only reading 97-98 degrees... and then thermometer dies later that day. I figure maybe I got a bad battery, stick a new one in, still reads 97-98, so I decide to give the incubator another overnight to get up to temp. On Thursday, still read 97-98, but I don't want these eggs getting stale, so I stick them in figuring that its better than nothing, and might buy me time to diagnose and fix the heating element problem.
Well, right before I go to bed last night, thermometer goes dead again, and I'm out of batteries. What the hell. Not having anything else on hand, I stick a meat thermometer through one of the vents, the long metal probe reaches down about as far as the digital probe had, seems like a good short term set up while I get a new fancy thermometer. But I'll admit I didn't bother waiting to see what temperature it stabilized at...
Well I wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, glance at the incubator.... 110!!!! Ahhhhh! I turn down the incubator, get it to stabliize around 100-102ish on the meat thermometer.... but now I'm terrified by a multitude of bad possibilities!
A) The incubator really was 110 degrees, the digital thermometer was just reading wrong, and I cooked my eggs too hot for about 12 hours before turning them down
B) The incubator really was 98 degrees on max blast, the digital was reading correctly despite whatever is wrong with it draining batteries, and the meat thermometer is not designed to accurately read air temperatures, meaning now I've turned by eggs down to some dangerously low temperature
C) Neither the digital nor the meat thermometer are reading anything remotely correct, and I'm just playing russian roulette with temperatures
Obviously, I need to get on ordering a new (accurate) digital thermometer stat, but in the meantime how screwed are my eggs? I imagine eggs are a little more stable and hardy early in the incubation process than they are later once a chick's organs start developing... will a short blast of 110 cook them? Will a day or two or mid 90's freeze them? I've had eggs accidentally hatch in a compost heap before, and broody hens hatch eggs in all sorts of different climates without being scientists, surely I have a little bit of wiggle room here right?
