First Annual Cinco de Mayo Turkey Hatchathon- Join us! Set Day: Easter

[dsqard]

Thank you for the nice comments and SCG thank you once again for warning me that the broodies might take a while to settle in their new boxes. I am definitely going to wait a few days until I give them eggs. They are not exactly happy in their new homes even though it is less than 3 feet from where they were sitting. Silly birds!

 

[Wisher1000]

Dsqard - give the hen a handful (5 or 6) golfballs to encourage her to sit on them in the new location. I find that the draw of that clutch of "eggs" kicks the hormones into overdrive and the urge to sit gets stronger. It may work to settle them some in the new location and not risk any actual eggs.

This last chick that hatched has me worried. It was a bit floppy, you know how some are when they go too long and they feel frumpy and don't stand well at first. I kept it in the brooder, alone, and it never cried. It sat around on it's stomach with it's feet underneath and it's head up and alert when it wasn't sleeping. It took it a while to start eating and finally got the idea by pecking crumbs off of my finger. It still doesn't get excited about food but will eat a bite here and there and will drink a little, too. It got stronger in the legs, like most floppy ones do, but it doesn't peep like other chicks. It doesn't seem to mind being alone at all. It peeps a few quiet little contented peeps every once in a while but never peeps the distress peep that most do when left alone. It will get up and walk to my hand when I put it in and it will look up at me when I am near the box, but no peeps of "Hello!" or "Get me" or "I'm lonely." It sits quietly in the brooder all alone and seemingly content. Weird. Has anyone else seen a chick do that?

Edited to remove a southern slang term.

 

[HEChicken]

I did the 20-day candling on my two remaining RP eggs this evening. I weighed them and also compared the air cell to the chart. I saw movement in both so that was good, but I'm a little concerned that the air cell is too small. I'm doing a dry hatch so I'm not sure if there's anything to be done? Unfortunately, the humidity here has been high due to Spring rains, so the RH has been running in the 50's in the house and around 40% in the incubator.

The weights I am not sure about because my scale currently only weighs in 2-gram increments. I have a scale on order that weighs in increments of .1 but it won't get here until after this hatch. Sigh. Anyway, the eggs have each lost about 12% but the only chart I could find was on chicken eggs and I'm not sure what % turkey eggs *should* have lost by day 20.

Anyway, Yinepu, or anyone else with an opinion, is there anything I can do to increase the air cell size at this point? I feel I'm a little at the mercy of weather conditions to reduce humidity....

 

[Arielle]

When I had this problem, there were a couple of possible solutions.
Blow a fan across the top of the incubator to increase the turnover of air in the inucbator.
Use a small AC to decrease the humidity. THis is what I did and it worked.

Currently I am also dry incubating. Even with the room at 50% the incubator is in the 20's but the air cells were not large enough. I opened the top of the incubator more than the vents allow. THis is a homemade incubator so I shifted the lid to create cracks on two sides. THe fan blows the warm humid air out. And the air cells looked better over the next week.

Hopefully there will be more ideas coming.

 

[yinepu]

I did the 20-day candling on my two remaining RP eggs this evening. I weighed them and also compared the air cell to the chart. I saw movement in both so that was good, but I'm a little concerned that the air cell is too small. I'm doing a dry hatch so I'm not sure if there's anything to be done? Unfortunately, the humidity here has been high due to Spring rains, so the RH has been running in the 50's in the house and around 40% in the incubator.

The weights I am not sure about because my scale currently only weighs in 2-gram increments. I have a scale on order that weighs in increments of .1 but it won't get here until after this hatch. Sigh. Anyway, the eggs have each lost about 12% but the only chart I could find was on chicken eggs and I'm not sure what % turkey eggs *should* have lost by day 20.

Anyway, Yinepu, or anyone else with an opinion, is there anything I can do to increase the air cell size at this point? I feel I'm a little at the mercy of weather conditions to reduce humidity....

Arielle has some good suggestions.. you can also add dry rice to the bator .. it will help absorb some of the excess moisture.. I've also use the little packets of silica gel

edited to add
by day 25 turkeys need to lose 10 to 12% ... since your scale weighs in 2 gram increments.. figure it as weighing off and go more by the air cell size

 

[dsqard]

Wisher I gave them each a couple of golf balls to settle them down. The GLW who has not been broody as long has settled down fairly quickly. The lav AM hen who has been trying to hatch a golf ball for I don't know how long (I know I am a bad chicken mommy to not keep track) is the one that is not really happy. I have food and water in the boxes with them as well so I am hoping that she will settle down pretty quickly. I still have a few days to collect eggs so if she breaks then I will just let her out and give them all to the GLW and let the other one loose. It would be fine if she finally broke too. She has been going at this really long already.

 

[Melissa Rose]

I did the 20-day candling on my two remaining RP eggs this evening. I weighed them and also compared the air cell to the chart. I saw movement in both so that was good, but I'm a little concerned that the air cell is too small. I'm doing a dry hatch so I'm not sure if there's anything to be done? Unfortunately, the humidity here has been high due to Spring rains, so the RH has been running in the 50's in the house and around 40% in the incubator.

The weights I am not sure about because my scale currently only weighs in 2-gram increments. I have a scale on order that weighs in increments of .1 but it won't get here until after this hatch. Sigh. Anyway, the eggs have each lost about 12% but the only chart I could find was on chicken eggs and I'm not sure what % turkey eggs *should* have lost by day 20.

Anyway, Yinepu, or anyone else with an opinion, is there anything I can do to increase the air cell size at this point? I feel I'm a little at the mercy of weather conditions to reduce humidity....

I read on here in another thread that putting a bowl of rice - uncooked and dry - in the incubator will absorb excess humidity and I have tried it twice and it worked perfectly both times

. You want to stir the rice every couple of hours though so that the top is down and the dry bottom is up! Happy Hatching

!!! I have two poults this morning and one from a friend who set my eggs while I was in the hospital

 

[Arielle]

Hope you are continuing to heal!!!

 

[yinepu]

I read on here in another thread that putting a bowl of rice - uncooked and dry - in the incubator will absorb excess humidity and I have tried it twice and it worked perfectly both times

. You want to stir the rice every couple of hours though so that the top is down and the dry bottom is up! Happy Hatching

!!! I have two poults this morning and one from a friend who set my eggs while I was in the hospital

Hey stranger!.. how are those other turkey eggs doing? lol

 

[dinahmoe]

OMG

i have a palm egg zipping.it is almost out.

this is my first turkey.

i will hug him,and squeeze him and i will name him George.