Backyard Poultry Forum

With extreme hot weather, if the ambient temperature goes above 38 and into the 40's the incubator surely must overheat ... do the embryos die? And at what temperature ?

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bobpeel@greatlander.com.au

It doesn't necessarily mean the eggs are cooked. There are a couple of reasons why. The thermostat is designed to kick in when the temperature falls below the incubation temperature and then stop the heating process when then temperature is about to go above the incubation temperature which turns off the heating processes.

Added to that the eggs themselves are a fairly dense thermal mass and really they are quite unaffected by by small tmeperature changes in the short term. It takes several hours to the temperature inside the egg to rise or fall.

Mid summer is never a good time to incubate eggs for more reasons than ambient temperature. The heat affects the viablity of both the eggs and the fertility of both the hens and roosters.

However, you have come this far and there is a greater than fify percent chance that the eggs will hatch just fine.

Mike

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Retired Now. Have moved and now officially a Tuross Head resident.

I agree - gotta watch the ambient temp since your incuubator wont cool down to the 37.7 degree - only heat up to.

Yesterday we went to 38.3 outside in the shade, the incubator was moved inside the cabin where we have air cond and will now stay there for the summer.

Last year we positioned a fan on high, directly on the incubator located within a corner and opened all the incubator vents. This also worked for us.

You can place your incubator within the shower, making sure the floor is dry and close the bathroom door when you know it would be a hotty one.
They say this is the coolest place in the house

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http://www.lindonestate.com.au

I found my incubator temperature at 40.5° midday recently (on a hot day).
I thought, oh gosh ... they're cooked for sure. The air even smelt a bit funny. I really felt like throwing all of the eggs out.

Then I thought, there's only a week to go so it's worth a try ...

I put on the air conditioner & set it to 24°, turned the incubator power off, and took the top lid off.
I left the eggs like this for ~3 hours to let the eggs cool down. Afterwards the incubator was powered up, and operated in the a/c room.

Surprisingly, a week later 50% of the eggs hatched, which was not bad because I had not candled the eggs at any point, so the actual hatch % was 80% as a guesstimate.

The moral of the story is, like Mike (chookinoz) said, "It doesn't necessarily mean the eggs are cooked", but gee ... it can be stressful.

Mine overheated while I was away camping for Australia Day. It was right on 103/104 at the top of the eggs. Then we had a power outage on Friday night for 4hrs, 11 - 2am! I will find out on Friday/Saturday if any survived - they will be some tough little cookies if they do!

Sometimes I wish I had air con! We have had quite cool weather until about Tuesday/Wednesday last week!

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Mummy to 3 boys - 2003, 2005, 2008.

Barnevelders, Aracanas, Coronation Sussex... and soon ducks... again.

It is that hot here if you want to run the incubator it needs to be in the house with a/c on. It was 44 here today according to weather zone .com, felt even hotter. found the thermometer with the top blown out in the shed the other day, wasn't running but if it were I wouldnt expect to hatch any. Good luck with them, only a small rise should be to bad

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Ahoy me harties, i been seein Chickens

First chick was out yesterday morning ... almost three days earlier than expected with another two out last night ... some of the others are pipping ... hope they're all normal and healthy ...

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bobpeel@greatlander.com.au

Good to hear Redlander - hope they are indeed all happy healthy chicks for you. I have heard higher temps can cause some toe curling, but this can be fixed in the first week by making a 'shoe' out of cardboard and bandaid. I had to do it to a few of my last hatch and it fixed them up fine.

I candled mine that had suffered high temps for a few days and 7 were moving and 8 or 9 more seemed ok even though no movement was seen, and only 4 seemed like they were not ok. So the temps must not have got too high.


How many do you have in the incubator?

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Mummy to 3 boys - 2003, 2005, 2008.

Barnevelders, Aracanas, Coronation Sussex... and soon ducks... again.

Thought I'd cooked mine too!
Last week there were 2 days where my temps were over 40/41 probably for hours
I thought it was the hot weather (which it coincided with) and I opened box (hovabator) to cool them and tookk the loose bubble wrap off the top, thinking they would be right, but next day, temp was just same, so maybe I had knocked the thermostat handle, so I spent an hour readjusting so the thermo was kicking in and out at right temps again. (PS I am using 2 x el cheapo indoor outdoor digi thermos with probes on long leads as described in a post by Denis and using the method I described in same thread where I first calibrated them to a clinical (more accurate) digital thermometer, and found what 37.5 +/- 1 degree was on these ones. I can check the min and max temps recorded.)

Anyway, 2 had hatched yesterday evening and heaps today, I'll do a head count when I transfer them to brooder later this arvo (I am totally resisting opening the incubator during the hatch till 24 hours after first chicks!! - might even leave them till tomorrow morning)

I had 1 hatch 3 days after all the rest (i.e. 4 d after start of hatch) in my King Suro last week - lucky I just hadn't got around to turning it off and chucking remaining eggs a day sooner.