A century of Turkey talk 2000-2100.

Cody Walker said:

What were your temps during incubation and lockdown? And what was your humidity during incubation and lockdown. And what incubator were you using? Thanks, sorry for all the questions

Click to expand...

My temps were between 99-100 during incubation, I drop it to 98-99 during lockdown. I don't know the humidity during incubation as I don't track it. I do complete dry incubation.. During lockdown I fill one reservoir and a jelly jar with water and add a sponge strip to the jar, if the Humidity thing I put in was right it held pretty steady at 68% during lockdown. The one major thing, I changed.. I hand turn 3x a day, I don't use the turner that came with my incubator, I was getting horrible hatch rates, below 50% since hand turning noticeable difference immediately. .. I have a two Hovabators with fans.. (not the digital ones)

Let me add.. I have struggled this year with my Turkey hatches.. I have been doing great at 100% hatch of chicken eggs that make it to lockdown but was losing so many turkeys.. It was depressing.. I read a lot, here and other places.. Also, I don't think I had my humidity high enough for their lockdown.. I was only adding the jelly jar and was struggling to keep it above 50% for more than 12 hours.. We have had a lot of rain the last week or so, don't know if that plays a factor, but I realized using those reservoirs was working better..
I am not a hands off person during lockdown until I see an external pip. I candle usually twice a day, but hardly at all during incubation. Once they pip I am completely hands off the incubator.

Of course everyone is different, what works for me may not work for anyone else, But I am so excited about this hatch... I have more going into lockdown Thursday and again the next Thursday and then I am taking a break.. Turkey hen #1 is happily sitting on 18 eggs and I put together a nice dark place within the coop hoping to lure Turkey #2 to lay there instead of the nesting boxes, if she will accept it, I'll start putting her eggs that I have been saving out there for her

8 are out, the 9th one looks to be starting to zip and the tenth is piped...

i put a total of 74 eggs in 2 little giant incubators (one still air, one forced) made it to lock down with only 42 after candling them. there were 3 batches that i put in within a day or two from each other and i locked them down at each batches day 25, i currently have had 14 chicks hatch, lost one last night. have 2 more hatching from that last batch that have pipped but thats about it. the first batch the humidity was about 60% and only had 3 hatch out of around 15 (lockdown) the second batch was in a different incubator and the humidity was in the 70s, when they started hatching it topped off at 99% and that batch hatched what i considered well. 8 out of 10(lockdown) the third batch the humidity is up about 80% and have only had 2 hatch so far.. have 2 more batches in another incubator now, and am getting ready to finish another incubator in the next couple weeks so will be putting in at least one more batch before im done for the year. after i got all the eggs down to where i could put them all in one incubator in a turner (the 42 eggs) a few were still in the other incubator. but the full incubator quit on me. i came home for lunch and they were sitting at 77 degrees. i immediately moved them to the other incubator and got them warmed back up so that could be part of the reason they arent hatching too well.

some of the first batch eggs were starting to get old so thats why several didnt make it in that batch, the third batch was shipped. the second batch was handed from one person to another and transported about 20 miles.

Congrats to everyone on the poults!

Our 3 babies are growing so fast! We certainly have one tom, likely 2 hens.
The lavender has decided that he likes to go in and push the chickens around and find himself a spot on the highest roosting bar. Poor guy certainly won't fit there when he is full grown! But for now he is very proud of himself.

My 2 girls still follow me all over the yard when I am out working. They are excellent gardeners. Sadly, I don't think I am. But the extreme amount of rain we are getting might be the problem there.

I will get some photos of them up again today or tomorrow.

My DW says I have a tom BBW for sure he is strutting his stuff,. I wish I was home to see it.

I lost my other BBW in a swimming accident. Somehow he/she in her antics got the lid off the water bucket got tangled in the twine holding the lid on and went swimming in the bucket. My DW was crying when she told me, She says those two were here favorites. I never knew she had a favorite bird. The way she acted I would think it would have been like having a favorite hemorrhoid for her. I think my being in Florida is good for her and me. She is developing a relationship with my birds. She even told me last night I needed to buy another game bird net to cover a larger pen!

MY hatch rate still stinks, I need a better incubator or technique. I got 3 poults out of the last 10 eggs to hatch. they all seem (according to DW) about 3/4 or full grown and just never hatch...

I hope your hatch goes great Ralph!
What kind of incubator are you using? That is now a thread on hatching and a bunch of people who are having problems are getting help with tweeking their incubators.

AmericanMom it looks like you had a great hatch! Congrats!

30 eggs in lockdown, 3 Narragansetts and 1 Bourbon Red so far!