Power outage?!
Ahg, just came here to moan and maybe get some advice.
We live in a rural area and today we got absolutely smashed by wind. Trees are down everywhere, power lines caused fires, and we’ve had a power outage with no indication of when it’ll be back. We’re on a shared generator system, but because of fuel costs it only runs twice a day, roughly 5:30am–8:30am and 5pm–8:30pm.
Unfortunately I don’t get to decide when the generator is on, I’m just lucky to be connected 😂
I have 14 chicks:
12 that will be 4 weeks old tomorrow
2 that are 1 week old today
I also have 2 incubators running:
one at day 16
one at day 4
It’s winter here and temps are predicted to drop to 11°C (50°F) tonight and 4°C (39°F) tomorrow night.
I’ve brought everything inside. The older chicks are in a crate near the lounge fire with towels over the top, and the smaller chicks are in a little brooder next to the fire as well, also covered to help hold heat.
The incubators are inside too with blankets around them. The generator has just gone off, so I’m going to let them hold temp as long as possible and then connect them to a battery for a few hours if I can 😭
I’m fairly confident the chicks will survive if I keep the fire going, but I’m honestly devastated thinking I might lose the eggs. Has anyone dealt with incubators during long outages before? How long can eggs realistically tolerate temp drops at day 16?