tradgedy- need new thermostat :(

[Megs]

well just my luck that on the day of my first hatch of the season my thermostat should stick in the off position

i had 40 eggs due to hatch yesterday, i checked the bator at 10am, many peeping noises and temp was great at 99.5, humidity was at 45 (low i know, but i have other eggs in due for a later date, just working on my hatching incubator for lockdown days), so i decided to leave it until late that night to check, so i wasnt tempted to open the bator (no glass front, its an older wood sportsman), well i went up at 10pm, and voila my thermostat had stuck OFF and the bator was cold at 55* (room temp), eggs were cold and no more peeping (cries), i have no way of knowing if it was off the entire 12 hours but i can only assume it was. needless to say im buying a new thermostat ASAP (this was one of those crappy wafer controlled one that is difficult to programme and does not have any digital readouts). It looks like i manage to salvage almost half of the hatch, i opened the eggs because im sure they were to tired to do it themselves and i will be helping them more if neccessary. It is just so sad, there is so many that had pipped out of the membrane and not yet broken the shell who obviously suffocated in the cold because they couldnt get all the way out, i probably should have opened them last night when i found them but i just couldnt bring myself to then. SO 2 hatched themselves overnight, and i have 14 more who are still alive and i will leave them alone for the time being. I will post some pics of the survivors once they are done.

needless to say this lot (whoever makes it) will be staying with me for a while to ensure they are healthy.

will have to wait and see what happens with next weeks hatch, not holding out much hope there, another 60 eggs

damn i hate electronic things

why dont i have a million broodys! they always get it right (well almost).

 

[jenjscott]

Sorry to hear this, with that cold a room temp, they don't stand much chance with a prolonged outage. Hope some of the others will do ok, not at such a critical time.

 

[Mahonri]

I hate stories like that.

 

[Megs]

reasonably decent ending! check my other thread in this catagory with pics! managed to get 15 chicks, the temp *may* not have been off the whole 12 hours, hard to say, but 15/40 isnt toooo bad, of those 5 quite early (partially developed) and i think the other 20 perished due to the outage (though 22 of the origional 40 eggs were japanese and im sure some of those were dead due to their lethal gene, 25% dead in shell aparently normal for lethal gene)

poor guys, i have a new electronic thermostat ordered that should arrive within the week!!

 

[countrychics]

i'm still sorry for your loss!!!!!!!