Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My sweet bumbling wife accidentally unplugged my incubator today. By the time I found it, it must have been unplugged for about 3 hours. She does these kind of things all the time. I have 3 young kids that don't require as much supervision as she does. Anyway, the temp dropped down to 81. I know, not too low and that's a rate of about 2 degrees per hour but when I candled them immediately after I figured this out, they seemed to me to be alot less active than they usually are when I candle them. They have 2 weeks left to go so they're pretty far along. I doubt this had any major impact on them but just wondering if there's any possibility that it could have and if I should worry about it? Thanks alot. Ryan.

...you have nothing to worry about. That is a very short
amount of time, and the temps never got too far out of
range. In my experience, you don't have to give it a
second thought.

Good luck,
Chris Simone

I really didn't think so but just wanted to make sure. This is my first ball clutch. I've waited 43 days with 2 more agonizing weeks to go. I really don't want the whole thing screwed up now. Thanks again. Ryan.

It depends on:

1) What kind of incubator it is (how much heat retention does it have)

2) What the ambient temp is in the room in which the incubator sits

3) What's inside. Corn or milk eggs? bahh, they'll be fine. Monitor or chameleon eggs? Yikes.

And these are three things that no one here knows. Only you.

Best of luck!

.

Should be ok. Ball eggs are HUGE and retain a LOT of heat. Hovabators suck though, but being styro, the inside should have retained quite a bit of heat for at least 3 hours, especially if the room was 75F ambient!

Best of luck.

These guys are very resilient. I think you will be fine. That is, if you can keep the bumbling female away from the eggs.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles