That Quail Place Forum
Raising Gamebirds => Incubation => Topic started by: Redhorse on May 23, 2004, 02:13:55 PM
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Put 30 quail eggs in the incubator Friday afternoon. Two hours later a massive thunderstorm dropping hail wiped out the electricity. I took the incubator up to my attic which was in the high 80's, until the next morning when the power came back on. Plugged it back in and got the temp back up. Just wondering if it's going to be a waste of time, or since it was so close to the beginning of the process if they will be fine. What effect will this have on my hatch? Talk about bad timing! :(
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2 Hours probably wasn't hardly enough time for the eggs to get up to temp. They will be fine. In the wild eggs take all sorts of fluctuations in stride. I had some duck eggs that sat out overnite after 2 weeks of incubation and were roughly 50 degrees when I found them. Cool temps are not a problem like temps that are too high.
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Man I feel your pain. I keep telling the old man that a portable generator is a GREAT idea. We experienced a power outage just cause our electric company is lame. Anyway...I put all the babies in a towel lined clothes basket and put them in the jeep with the heater full blast. As for the eggs in the incubator?....well so far out of 300 eggs only 26 have hatched. We went ahead and candled the rest of the ones that would have been affected by the loss of temperature and some have just stopped developing.
Anyway...need a back up plan. I don't care if they kids can not watch TV, but I do care if my babies die or we spend all this time collecting eggs just to have to throw them out. GENERATOR is the word of the day.
Too bad they are not free :wink:
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I'll keep you posted on the hatch. A few of those eggs probably weren't fertile anyway. I'll candle them in about a week and see what's happening. :) What do you think about a solar powered battery backup unit? Think something like that could be rigged up? Probably won't get motivated till I have a larger incubator and start doing hundreds of eggs at a time. 8)
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You could hook it up to a battery back-up for computers.
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Ahh! A UPS "uninterupted power source" just gave one of those away a few months ago because it was big and hummed to much! :?
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They make them much smaller, quieter, and cheaper now. :wink:
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Shagomatic, you are a genius :shock: ....or just good at thinking out of the box. Anyway...the back-up battery is a great idea.
Thanks for the input.
We had a terrible storm last night and I laid awake waiting for the power to go out. It didn't but the stress is gonna kill me. :lol:
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Its easy to think outside the box when they leave the lid off! :P I hope it helps you sleep easier at night!
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Candled today and only have 2 out of the 30 that are clear. Was gone over the weekend and forgot to check the water tray before leaving. It was bone dry this morning, hope I didn't dry them out too bad. Noticed one egg had a chip out of the shell but the membrane was intact. Showed a dark spot when I candled it, will this egg hatch? Didn't notice the chip when I put them in the bator. The spot is maybe an eighth inch in dia. :?:
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i'd leave it ...especially if it's developing...as long as some type of bacteria doesn't penetrate the membrane, it'll hatch..might wanna put a drop of hot wax,elmers glue, or tape over it...how much longer til due date?
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Man these thunderstorms are really starting to suck. I am getting one to two every day. I have had the generator running 4 out of the past 7 days, runs all my brooders incubators and most of my house...
Best of luck with your hatch.
I finally broke down and bought a generator this year. I lost way too many birds in the past. It paid for itself this week guys, with ease. I will never go without one again. Look for used ones in auctions and ask around, a buddy found one for me, came from Y2K scare, had never been ran.
I hear the thunder rolling in again and the sky is getting black, welcome to Ohio, if you dont like the weather hang around a minute it will change.
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Before I got a generator I kept several candles around. I have incubators that have capacities from 1500-9000 quail eggs. When power would go out I would move eggs around so they wouldn't be under the direct heat of the candles. I also left the door open slightly because the co2 off of the candles. My hatch rate dropped a little but nothing real drastic. I am with you Derk1 on the storms. We have got hit pretty hard in last 2 weeks. Not real great for egg production either.
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Should see some baby birds around the 15th. Will be putting another batch in on Thursday. Have 25 more eggs already! My 5 little hens sure are cranking them out, it's only been 11 days. :P
If these storms don't let up I'll have to start feeding my bees! Lost a lot of hives ($) to the rain last summer. :evil:
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Hey Dirk, that storm rolled in here about 11:30 last night. Power didn't go off ...this time. Certainly thinking hard about that generator! The last power outage cost me a washer and dryer. :shock:
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redhorse bad news, it is getting black again right now.
Enough is enough, it did this crap last summer all summer. The mosquitoes are going to own the country again. Let alone paying over $2.00 a gallon for gas to mow the yard and run the generator. I have not had a good spring at all so far but I hope that changes real soon.
The candles are a neat idea also, never thought of that one., my luck I would catch the incubator on fire and burn my place to the ground though.
good luck everyone
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Derrick place the candle under the humidity pan !! when the candle melts through the pan it will put the candle out. Just a thought ? so far we have been lucky and have not lost the electric yet. keep your chin up you'll make it !!! hope to see you this weekend in Lucasville
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Every time it rains, the water washes nectar and pollen out of a flower. It takes three days without rain for both of those to build up again. Last winter all my bees starved to death because they weren't able to put away enough honey to make it over the winter. :cry: I put on feeders and did what I could do but too little too late. This spring spent around $900 on bees. They are doing OK but if it keeps up this way, I will not get a honey crop again this year. Will have to leave all the honey for the bees. :?
Checked my bator this morning and noticed the temp was a little over 101 :shock: ...don't know how long it was spiked like that. Not sure if I bumped the adjustment knob last time I was in there or what. Did I cook them? :?:
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Well I got hit pretty hard last evening (Southeast Oklahoma). Those straightline 60 mph winds were too much for a couple of china berry trees and took off the corner of my porch and screwed up a new metal roof....The really bad news is we were without power from around 6:00pm until 2:30am. Lost 10 one week old quail and one red golden pheasant in the brooder. Don't know what the impact will be in the incubator (150 quail eggs and ten pheasant eggs)....Have to wait and see. 60 of the quail and five of the pheasant are due to hatch Monday. The rest were five days into incubation.
P.S. Redhorse- I "planned" on getting started in bees this year. A coworker had a working hive that he didn't want and before I could pick it up, his wife gave it away. I had already purchased a hive body that I was going to use as a deep super so when plan A fell apart, I went ahead and bought the rest of a hive, got it painted and ready but it looks like I'll have to wait until next spring to order any bees. All dressed up but I have to wait about 8 months for the dance...
David
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Stewaw, check with a local Apiary on this...but if you were to get the bees RIGHT NOW you should still be OK. Put feeders on and keep them in sugar water and you could certainly get the hive established this year. You might not get honey to harvest, but it would guarantee a larger harvest next year if they make it through the winter for you. Beginning of June is the latest recommended time to start a new hive in Ohio. Earlier the better, but I'm sure Oklahoma has a longer nectar flow than we do. Maybe even try to find one frame of drawn out comb from someone local so the queen could start laying immediately after you hive them. :)
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Hey!!,, that's enough talk about "the birds and the bees", you people are embarrassing me!!! LOL!! :lol:
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:shock: Oh my :!:
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:D Three chicks this morning! Had the hatch on my calendar for tomorrow or Tuesday. The temp did tend to run a little high the whole time, even though I tried to keep it at 100 it seemed to stay around 101-102. One chick was already dry and the other two are still wet. I guess I didn't manage to screw it up as bad as I thought I had. There is another batch of eggs in there about 2 weeks behind this first batch. Should have another bator to use as a hatcher before I put the third batch of eggs in. Suppose I'll have to start a new thread on the brooding and raising forum. :P
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Well...out of 30 eggs 4 were not fertile and never developed at all. At this point 16 have hatched and the rest show no sign of life. I'm going to give them till this evening, and candle them again to see what there is to see. Of the 16 that hatched 3 did not make it. I now have 13 littls babies in the brooder :P . Now, I have 32 more eggs in the incubator due in a couple weeks, and a third batch I'll be putting in this week to start :? . Do I need to put some sort of divider in my brooder to keep these hatches seperate? I'm assuming the older birds will peck the newbies if I don't.
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You will need to separate those different hatches. I've found that I have to brood chicks alone for the first week. After that, I seem to have pretty good luck combining say; a batch of two week olds with a batch of four week olds. The biggest trick I've found is to move ALL birds that are to be combined into a separate cage/pen etc. at the same time. If you dump a new batch into an existing cage with other birds, the newcomers really take a beating but if it's a "new" cage to everyone they seem to adapt well. Note: this isn't very effective for breeding age birds during the breeding season.....those rascals (males and females alike) are just spoiling for a fight.
Regarding my power failure; would up with a decent hatch anyway. I went 100% on 6 pheasant and about 80% on 50 quail.
David
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:) My next hatch isn't due for another week or so. I have materials here to whip out another brooder quickly, so will probably keep the new hatch separate to begin with then combine first two when the third comes along. Glad to hear your hatch went well :!: My kids are really loving this...my wife thinks the chicks are pretty cute also. Don't know how long she will put up with having the brooder in our kitchen though :?: