First time hatching

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Hanlills777

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Hello, I'm about to hatch ducklings in my classroom but as the children are about to have a weeks holiday I'm going to have to unplug the incubator about 2 days after the eggs have gone in so I can take the incubator home and then again a week Later to bring them back to school. This is the only solution I can think of in order to keep an eye on the temp and humidity. I only live about a 3/4 min drive from the school. Can anyone give me any advice on whether this will be ok or not? I don't know what else to do, thanks
 
They will be fine for temperature in that time Hanlills. Should tolerate several hours without heat -it's the egg core temperature that's important. But I don't know what effect the travelling vibration will have on the developing embryo. Obviously the eggs are turned several times a day, but that is a gentle movement, as the mother does. Personnally I wouldn't risk it, but obviously you can't now delay the start or they eggs would be too old. Perhaps someone else on the forum has experience of moving incubators in that way? Or alternatively pop-in to school to check daily.
 
When I hatched they were checked every time I went past. Never needed any adjustment though and shouldn't, because the machine settings should be temperature and humidity stabilised for 48 hours before the eggs are actually put in. The only issues we had problems with were draughts and ambient temperature, both of which can affect the actual temperature in the incubator -regardless of what the gauge says. Our incubator has to operate in a draught free area with an ambient temperature above 20 degrees. Really, if your environment is stable, your incubator was set up properly and your eggs are turned automatically, you should not need to check them at all. That is until you candle at 6 days to remove the infertile ones if any, because otherwise they go off, start to weep and can explode and poison all the others.
 
Over half term the temperature in the classroom should not change as I won't be opening the outside door to let children, should only change a little when they come in at the start of the day and when I let them out when they come back to school. I'm going to make sure it's not my classroom they go out for outside play from as the classroom can get very cold when they do.
 
You can take it home with you, carefully or you can leave it at school with a look in on alternate days if it's an automatic turner. They will even hatch after a 12 hour power cut !
Incubation is a bit unpredictable anyway and you can do everything right and it goes wrong and nearly everything wrong and it goes right !
 
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