Power Cuts during incubation

[cherrycoop]

I have been incubating 7 Poland eggs, these were due to hatch yesterday. Over the last three weeks we have had no less than 4 power cuts lasting several hours. Fortunately the average temperature does stay around 25C so not as drastic as it could be. This morning I have 5 eggs pipping, so very pleased as I was sure that I had lost them all. Fingers crossed that they all manage to hatch.

 

[Marigold]

That's excellent, Cherry. Here in the UK it's really chilly and miserable, even though we haven't had much frost this year,and power cuts during incubation are everybody's nightmare. We had better all move to the Seychelles I think. Do let us know how the hatch goes.

 

[cherrycoop]

24 hours later and now have 5 chicks so very pleased . It may be warm but I it's very wet here, had well over 2 inches of rain in the last 12 hours

 

[Marigold]

That's excellent Cherry. Could we see any pics, please? Its time for babies on the forum, to try to convince us that Spring is not too far away in the U.K!

 

[chrismahon]

We had this problem in 2012 in the Dordogne Cherrycoop. The electricity supply is chronically unreliable there so we bough a power failure alarm and kept a fully charged large leisure battery with an inverter next to the incubator. The number of times I had to get up in the middle of the night! When we went out we had to switch to the inverter and not be away for more than 3 hours. Then we had to recharge the battery. At one stage I pulled the van up to the back door and kept it running for 4 hours with the inverter as the battery was flat and we had no fuel left for the generator. Apparently a few years earlier they had a power cut that lasted two weeks without any explanation. We used to get refunds on the electricity bill standing charge because of the amount of time the power was unavailable.

The time an incubator can be without heat depends on the ambient temperature (obviously) and the degree of insulation on the incubator. I have heard of 12 hours and still a successful, but a day late, hatch. Apparently you must be very careful when smothering the unit in blankets as this blocks the air supply and any chicks pipping suffocate.