Power outage while incubating

[Xaila]

This is mine & my sister's first time breeding leopard geckos, though I have charge of the incubator. I was away out of state on memorial day weekend and was having my mother go and check in on my animals every now and then.

There was a lot of windy weather at home and it knocked the power out for a few hours. The herpstat I have on the hovabator remembers its settings in the event of an outage and my mother said everything looked find shortly after the power came back. When I got home though, I looked at the min/max on the prob thermometer I have in there. It seems like the inside of the 'bator may have gotten down to room temperature (74-ish F) at some point.

So far the eggs that were in there at the time still look totally fine. Wouldn't I know by now if they'd died from that temp drop? How harmful is a temp drop for a few hours? I really wish I'd been home when this happened...I would've started the genny and hooked it back up, but it's no one's fault.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

What temperature are you incubating at? Leo eggs are pretty hardy and they might just be fine. Hikki's posted that he was using an incubation method where he was incubating about 85 during the day and turning the heat off on his eggs every night and it was getting down to about 74. I believe at least one (if not all) of his eggs hatched so yours definitely have a good chance if his were okay!!

I think you would know by now if they were bad. They would have molded or started to smell or something in two weeks time if they were totally dead.

Keep us posted.

 

[Xaila]

Ah I meant to mention that and forgot. These are being incubated at 82 degrees. They're still all plump and whole...one egg did collapse and mold but I suspected it was infertile from the start, so I don't really think it was related to that drop.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

That's good! I would be a lot more worried about a drop from 90-74. Some of the experts reassured me a few weeks ago about how hardy leo eggs can be when I was about to transport some to a local middle school for the kids to hatch and raise. I don't think the short drop yours experienced will have hurt them one bit

 

[Xaila]

Slight update... There were 4 eggs in the 'bator when this all happened. Two (the ones laid 4/24) went on to hatch into beautiful and healthy babies. The ones laid 5/6 sadly did not make it. I can't say for sure that the drastic temperature drop was the culprit in losing those two eggs, but it's what I suspect. So far the six that have been laid since the outage look totally fine with good consistent humidity and temperatures. I'm sad about losing those two though since it seems that female stopped laying after only producing two fertile sets of eggs (But she's a first time breeder so I didn't have huge expectations)

 

[DrCarrotTail]

Glad to hear some of them worked out for you! You should post some pictures of the babies!