Sweaty Eggs?

Hi. New breeder here, with only 4 hatched clutches under our belt. At the last St. Louis NARBC, we decided to splurge and get a true icubator by Nature’s Spirit (we used a diy cooler before.)

We let it run for several weeks on a thermostat and it held amazingly, holding 89-90 degrees. Our first clutch of the season died within 2 weeks, we chalked it up to mom being a first timer. We dont measure our vermiculite perfectly, but it clumped and i did not have any drips when i set up that box. I use the thermostat to measure how hot the icubator is as well as a seperate digital thermometer just to be double sure.

Clutch #2 just dropped 3 days ago, i have 5 great looking eggs and one who was iffy from the start + a slug. I set it up the same, this time i took more precaution by baking the vermiculite first. I added water the same and used egg crate to keep the eggs off it. Sealed with cling wrap.
Things have been great until i got off work today and saw my thermostat had shut off. My eggs were at 70 degrees. I quickly got changed and reset, it took them a couple hours but we are back at 88-89 again. I noticed during the warm up they keep sweating :sweat: I’ve wiped them off again and again. Its not condensation from the bin because my lid is dry and Ive been using a paper towel to catch drips. The cling wrap has been taken off for now. Is this harmful? What do i need to do?

Are they okay? I know its too early to tell what that power cut may have done and I’m prepared for that, i just didnt know if theres anymore i can do. I know the icubator was running last night, so at the VERY MOST i think it was 12hrs before discovery.

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Too cool is better than too hot and I don’t believe 12 hours will be catastrophic. The one small brown one is definitely a slug so you can pitch it. I would cover them again and just check on it to make certain they are not wet. The condensation is probably a combination of the rising temps and the humidity of the substrate. I would expect it to level out once you have everything stable for a period of time.

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I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, @graysnake . It sounds very stressful.

Bear in mind that water holds temperature very effectively, and eggs are mostly water. The incubator is somewhat insulated, so even the air would take time to decrease in heat. I can’t say how long the embryos were 70°F, but I can say that this would have been for much less time than the thermostat was off.

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