A century of Turkey talk 2000-2100.

[R2elk]

Morning folks Do you see a bullseye in these pics? Wondering if my bourbon tom got his job done...
View attachment 1369163 View attachment 1369164

The first photo appears to have a bullseye but the second pic is too out of focus to tell.

 

[R2elk]

Hello again turkey lovers.
I am still having troubles hatching turkeys. I have no clue whats going on.
I have 2 Bronze heritage hens and 1 broad breasted bronze. I have lost 8 to drowning after internal pipping, also 4 did not pip internally. At first I had my humidity to high.
I am running it dry now and humidity is about 38%. My hatcher is running about 70%
Temps 99.5 .They are externally pipping on about day 22 and hatching on day 26.
I have about 16 successful hatches so far.
2 of the ones that drowned, drowned after external Pip,so I am having to assist most because they are becoming what I'm going to call egg bound.
No room in egg to move and peck there way out.
?? Temp to high??

The first thing I would do is to get rid of the BBB tom. It is one thing to use a heritage tom over a broad breasted hen but that does not mean it is okay to go the other way around. Broad breasted toms are typically too big and too inflexible for natural matings.

Normally losing poults to "drowning" during the last days is due to too high of humidity during the incubation phase which prevents the air cell from being drawn down properly. There are many who say forget what the humidity actually reads and base whether you raise or lower the humidity on weight loss so that you get the size of the air cell increased to the proper amount.

Read Hatching Eggs 101 by @Sally Sunshine

The other thing that can cause loss during the final days is insufficient oxygen (too much carbon dioxide). At high altitude this can happen just because you can't get enough air into the hatcher. The other reason it can happen is when people close vents in order to increase the humidity. Do not close vents to increase the humidity. The humidity needs to be raised by increasing the surface area of the water.

You definitely need to use a calibrated thermometer to check your incubator temperature. If your poults are internally pipping on day 22 and hatching on day 26, your temperature is not 99.5°F. It has to be higher than that.

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

Five healthy bug eyed babies from the 7 that made it to lockdown. They are so cute! Dad is a RP, mothers may be BR, MB or RP.

Sadly, I lost my favorite Mottled Black the other night. She was laying eggs somewhere in the woods and didn’t come back to the coop at night. Yesterday I found feathers.

The good news is that I found her eggs, which went straight into the incubator.

 

[bald Rooster]

The first thing I would do is to get rid of the BBB tom. It is one thing to use a heritage tom over a broad breasted hen but that does not mean it is okay to go the other way around. Broad breasted toms are typically too big and too inflexible for natural matings.

Normally losing poults to "drowning" during the last days is due to too high of humidity during the incubation phase which prevents the air cell from being drawn down properly. There are many who say forget what the humidity actually reads and base whether you raise or lower the humidity on weight loss so that you get the size of the air cell increased to the proper amount.

Read Hatching Eggs 101 by @Sally Sunshine

The other thing that can cause loss during the final days is insufficient oxygen (too much carbon dioxide). At high altitude this can happen just because you can't get enough air into the hatcher. The other reason it can happen is when people close vents in order to increase the humidity. Do not close vents to increase the humidity. The humidity needs to be raised by increasing the surface area of the water.

You definitely need to use a calibrated thermometer to check your incubator temperature. If your poults are internally pipping on day 22 and hatching on day 26, your temperature is not 99.5°F. It has to be higher than that.

I have 3 hens one is a broad breasted I do have a BBB tom but he is smaller then my HB.I honestly believe my bator is a little warm.My poults need the extra couple days to lose a little more water and get stronger!I am averaging about 60% hatch rate. This is terrible in my opinion.I am used to a 99% hatch rate with my chickens.

 

[memphis]

Anne, sorry about your mottled. That's a bummer. On a happier note, your bug eyed babies are darling! They sure are colorful. Wonder what they will be when they grow up.

 

[memphis]

Sitting out with my girls. The leg feathers that go down to their hocks...well..to me...looks like they are wearing Bermuda shorts.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

The penciled babies are slowly growing up I'm so happy that they're finally fully integrated in to the flock. That's so much less for me to worry about now. They were following me around tonight at bedtime so I snapped a couple pictures.

 

[rjohns39]

woke up to an uncomfortable serenade this morning... A great horned owl was hooting near the pasture and my Toms were answering back. Too dark to see anything but it would appear that the Toms got the message across as the owl moved on.

 

[CherMoz]

Rjohns - I'd love to hear a recording of that if you ever get the chance again!

 

[memphis]

Aurora...they look great! And already following you around. Keeping my fingers crossed they are hens!

Interesting Rjohns! I'm agree with CherMoz....a recording would be cool.