Have any of you chilled incubating eggs during a power outage?

[Airyaman]

So earlier today my power went out during a storm and I was on day 13 of two batches of eggs in two incubators. Power outages in my area are actually fairly rare, so I was not fully prepared or expecting it.

At 30 mins in, I started looking at what to do. I knew that broody hens could leave the nest for up to an hour, so I need to be prepared.

Luckily I had the equipment I needed to power the incubators for 1.5 hours (the total outage was 2.5 hours). When I hooked it up, the temp inside the incubators was ~88F.

That said, I saw recommendations from several sites to actually chill the eggs if they were in days 1-14 if the power outage was more than 2 hours.

That seems counterintuitive to me. The sites did say this works better in the earlier days of the 14, but still, it doesn't quite make sense.

So has anyone done this? Experienced an extended power outage and chilled the eggs (place them in refrigerator)?

Can anyone explain the science?

 

[Zenmonkey]

I'm unaware of this, but willing to be educated.

I'd want to see some pretty solid evidence though. I've had eggs mid incubation cool to run temperature from power outages, and it doesn't seem to cause significant loss if it doesn't last for more than a couple hours.

I can believe a (brief) trip through the refrigerator might not kill them. But I'm suspicious regarding that it would help them.

Couple thoughts.

1. I never know how long the power page will last. Sometimes the power company can tell me "we expect", but it is rarely overly accurate.

2. I try to keep my refrigerator closed as much as possible. Adding 99F eggs sounds like a bad idea for my food.

3. I'm really doubting that a chill below room temperature is a positive thing. Call me a skeptic.

4. I have a cabinet incubator. That's a lot of eggs to move, and a lot of thermal capacity in the eggs. My resistance to chilling eggs might be greater than average because I expect my eggs to cool more slowly and the effort required greater.

If you've got data to convince me, I'm open to being educated. I'd love to know how to improve my success rates.

Edits because "cool" keeps getting auto corrected to "cook".

 

[Airyaman]

I'm unaware of this, but willing to be educated.

I'd want to see some pretty solid evidence though. I've had eggs mid incubation cool to run temperature from power outages, and it doesn't seem to cause significant loss if it doesn't last for more than a couple hours.

I can believe a (brief) trip through the refrigerator might not kill them. But I'm suspicious regarding that it would help them.

Couple thoughts.

1. I never know how long the power page will last. Sometimes the power company can tell me "we expect", but it is rarely overly accurate.

2. I try to keep my refrigerator closed as much as possible. Adding 99F eggs sounds like a bad idea for my food.

3. I'm really doubting that a chill below room temperature is a positive thing. Call me a skeptic.

4. I have a cabinet incubator. That's a lot of eggs to move, and a lot of thermal capacity in the eggs. My resistance to chilling eggs might be greater than average because I expect my eggs to cool more slowly and the effort required greater.

If you've got data to convince me, I'm open to being educated. I'd love to know how to improve my success rates.

Edits because "cool" keeps getting auto corrected to "cook".

I was not advocating the practice, I was wondering if anyone actually did it. Last night when I had the power outage and realized it would probably last for more than 1 hour, I began thinking of what I might need to do.

And here is what I found:

https://www.brinsea.com/t-poweroff.aspx

How to Handle a Power Outage​

If you experience a power outage longer than two hours during the first few days of incubation, it is actually better to chill the eggs and get them in a range of 41° - 68°F. This can easily be accomplished by putting the eggs in the refrigerator.

This method can be followed up until the 14th day of incubation, although losses can be expected the further along the eggs are. Another option, especially late in incubation, would be to take steps to limit heat loss. This can be done by keeping the lid on the incubator and raising the temperature in the room. The metabolic heat of the embryos will keep them warm for a little while after the power goes out.

I was not going to do that, but here is a well known incubator company stating that it would be better to chill the eggs down to 41-68 degrees! So I was just wondering if anyone had actually ever tried that.