Hi One Acre Wonderfarm, I am in Morrisville, about 2 1/2 miles from Copley Hospital and we haven't lost power at all. As a matter of fact, when we lived in FLorida with all underground utilities we used to loose the power once or tice a month, here in Vermont we have only lost it 3 times in 4 years. I mention Copley Hospital because that may be the reason why we haven't lost power here much, we may be on the same grid with them.
In regards to your incubator, if you don't have a generator as a back up I have a couple of sugestions. Depending on how long you loose power for you may be able to use a car batery hooked up to a 12 VDC / 110VAC converter ($20 to $30 at most hardware or electronics stores) This should give you a couple of hours of juice or you can hook it up to your car and run the engine OUTSIDE and run an extension cord in to the house, it plugs in to your cigarette lighter or alternative power source in the car / truck. If you heat with wood you could gather some rocks the size of glofballs or anytihng small and solid, I use a couple of antique irons and bring them to the coop in the evening, it raises the temperature there a few degrees for a little while, I place them on the wood stove to heat them up and then you could place them in the incubator being careful not to melt any plastic, wrapped in a towel or on a pot holder may be a good idea, you may have to play with them a little to get the temperature right. I guess a hot water bottle would work also, your hot water tank in the house should hold hot water for a while depending on usage and again problem solved if you heat with wood. This summer my project is to build a VAWT (Vertical Axis Wind Turbine) that I am going to use solely on the chicken coop for lighting and heat in the winter, I have a nice spot in my woods next to an open corn field where I can place it that gets good wind in the winter and will be hidden by the trees all summer long. I may use it to power an electric fence in the spring/summer/fall.
By the way, I had a mink visit my property recently. Has anyone else seen any activity?
