Wrong temp in incubator - what's the likelyhood of viability?

[mrste1984]

So a friend of mine is incubating some eggs for us. They went in on March 30. She candled them on April 6 and had to discard quite a few (of my 12 eggs, 3 had zero evidence of development). She candled them again on the 13th and said she noticed some issues but didn't elaborate on them. She said though that the issues led her to think something was wrong with the incubator so she put in another thermometer. The temp on the one said 99.5 and the temp on the other said 104. She didn't say exactly what she saw when she candled, and she's not sure how long the temp was wrong for.

What I'm wondering is how likely is it that the eggs will be viable after potentially 2 weeks of being at the incorrect temperature? Should we try to find more eggs right away so that they'll be good to go in a week if nothing hatches? Or will most of the eggs hatch? I'm not sure how sensitive hatching eggs are...

 

[Mintatheena]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but 104 for any prolonged period of time is a death sentence for chicks at any stage of their incubation. If the second thermometer is correct, those eggs most likely will not hatch. Do you mind sharing what kind of incubator she used? Styrofoam incubators have a tendency to produce hot spots and are very prone to temperature fluctuations. I've had everything from a perfect 100% hatch rate to a 0% hatch, both of which being 25+ eggs. I'm sorry to hear things turned out that way

 

[AmyLynn2374]

So a friend of mine is incubating some eggs for us. They went in on March 30. She candled them on April 6 and had to discard quite a few (of my 12 eggs, 3 had zero evidence of development). She candled them again on the 13th and said she noticed some issues but didn't elaborate on them. She said though that the issues led her to think something was wrong with the incubator so she put in another thermometer. The temp on the one said 99.5 and the temp on the other said 104. She didn't say exactly what she saw when she candled, and she's not sure how long the temp was wrong for.

What I'm wondering is how likely is it that the eggs will be viable after potentially 2 weeks of being at the incorrect temperature? Should we try to find more eggs right away so that they'll be good to go in a week if nothing hatches? Or will most of the eggs hatch? I'm not sure how sensitive hatching eggs are...

Which one said 99.5? The incubator or the independent thermometer? Is it a still air or forced air incubator? It's hard to help without knowing what she was seeing during candling. 104 is potentially dangerous, if that is accurate, bt if there is still life in the eggs, I wouldn't give up hope.

 

[mrste1984]

I don't know the brand/exact type, but it is a Styrofoam incubator.

The incubator thermometer said 99.5, and I don't know if it's still or forced air.

She candled the eggs again yesterday before lockdown and it looks like none of the eggs will be viable.

Oh well.

She's offered to cover the cost of the eggs we put in there (including the ones we bought for her as a thank you for incubating our eggs). And we technically would have illegal chicks if we brought them home as day olds anyways if they did hatch - we need a permit and we were supposed to get it at the council meeting tomorrow night but the person who does the permits didn't get the paperwork prepared on time, even though we got her the info she needed a couple days before she needed it. So now we have to wait until May 12 for the next meeting. The approval process is really just a rubber stamp type thing, we have 13 and a bit acres, our neighbors have chickens so it would only be an issue if someone decided to be a jerk and make a fuss about us having a small hobby farm (we've applied to have horses and goats as well, even though we are already zoned to have 3 horses without a permit and up to 7 with a conditional use permit). And honestly, if our permit was denied we'd probably still have chickens anyways. Unless you come onto our property, you can't see anything anyways because we're all bush...