A century of Turkey talk 2000-2100.

[duluthralphie]

There are companies that already have developed mid range (between BB and heritage) turkeys and have them available for sale. They claim they can breed naturally.

You never know what will show up in your own flock. I had a BB Blue Slate tom. I suspect it was from a gene mutation but it is possible that it was just a hidden recessive gene that happened to be homozygous in his case. He never got to reproduce because I didn't realize that he was broad breasted until I was plucking him.

Did you try glueing the feathers back on and stitching the head on and waiting to see if he recovered from his injuries?

 

[rjohns39]

Ugh. Newbie turkey egg hatchers (like me) should be banned from reading 100's of posts AND scientific studies about hatching said eggs. Especially when the newbie is attempting to hatch the most sought for eggs that were difficult to get in the first place.

EVERYONE has a different opinion - from the beginning hatching temp in the incubator - which can apparently include pre-incubation temps and then hatching at 37C to 38C. Then there is the level of humidity - where some say go dry and with others who say go high. Of course, the final "lockdown" phase also has wide-ranging differences where some recommend lowing temp 1 degree to others that say it should be a degree higher. The ONLY thing anyone seems to agree with is added humidity.

Makes me just go

Best suggestion I can offer is keep experimenting and listen to what the folks here suggest. With my bator and environment, turkeys do best with 99.8* and 40% humidity until lock down. At lock down I push up the humidity to 65%. I have a brinsea 380 with humidity pump. I also use the cool down cycle 1 hour per day.

 

[duluthralphie]

Best suggestion I can offer is keep experimenting and listen to what the folks here suggest. With my bator and environment, turkeys do best with 99.8* and 40% humidity until lock down. At lock down I push up the humidity to 65%. I have a brinsea 380 with humidity pump. I also use the cool down cycle 1 hour per day.

can you program that in or do you have to do it manually?

 

[rjohns39]

can you program that in or do you have to do it manually?

I program it. It's fully digital.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

In my area, it works best keeping humidity between 20-30% for incubation at 100° and 65% for hatching (unless they decide to start hatching before I move them to lockdown). That's how I get my best results. Otherwise, they tend to drown before hatching.

 

[aliciaplus3]

Most poults are not hatched in January because most people do not supply their turkeys with the supplemental lighting necessary to get them laying that early.

Turkeys are sexually mature at 6 months old (unless late developers). Since most are hatched late in the year, they do not normally begin laying until the following spring. In many cases they are only 6 to 8 months old when they begin laying. My 7 month old hens began laying in the middle of March this year.

We started in January so my DD could have them ready for fair in July, our fair requires the market class turkeys to be born during the current year so after Jan 1st. She is taking a heritage Turkey for the mest class( yes we know she will not place as well as s broad breasted) and wanted as much time to grow them as possible. It's still very exciting for her she got another smaller egg this morning, there are 3 hens in that pen.

here she is giving treats, this pic is from a couple weeks ago before we put the Nn in a separate pen, the Turkey hens were removing their tail feathers.... silly birds

 

[aliciaplus3]

This is the first year I have had January turkeys.

An egg would be a shocker for me, but cool




PS. I still think she is 6 month old, Closing in on 7.

Your counting is probably better than mine.

 

[aliciaplus3]

Ugh. Newbie turkey egg hatchers (like me) should be banned from reading 100's of posts AND scientific studies about hatching said eggs. Especially when the newbie is attempting to hatch the most sought for eggs that were difficult to get in the first place.

EVERYONE has a different opinion - from the beginning hatching temp in the incubator - which can apparently include pre-incubation temps and then hatching at 37C to 38C. Then there is the level of humidity - where some say go dry and with others who say go high. Of course, the final "lockdown" phase also has wide-ranging differences where some recommend lowing temp 1 degree to others that say it should be a degree higher. The ONLY thing anyone seems to agree with is added humidity.

Makes me just go

Hatching is an art.... and every different environment calls for different specs, also whether the eggs are shipped makes a difference. I do pretty well hatching from my flock, so eggs laid at my elevation in my climate, but I get eggs from somewhere else and things change. I have had best luck by tracking the air cells, in other words listen to the eggs...

full disclosure this is not my image but one I found online, but if you are candling and tracing the air cells then you can see how they are growing. Air cell is growing too slow? Raise the humidy. Too fast? Lower it. The biggest variable people dont agree on is humidity and I think it is because it changes, from place to place and depending on what you are hatching. I can not do a completely dry hatch because I live in Dry Colorado at about 6000 feet above sea level. Someone who lives in a very humid place might do best with no added water. And be careful hatching is addictive! Lol

 

[R2elk]

Did you try glueing the feathers back on and stitching the head on and waiting to see if he recovered from his injuries?

Of course not, he was brain dead before the head was removed. The neighbor said he was delicious.

 

[R2elk]

Then there is the level of humidity - where some say go dry and with others who say go high.

The problem with dry hatching is what are the local conditions. In an area where the ambient humidity is 60%, dry hatching does mean not adding any water. In an area where the ambient humidity is 30% or lower, dry hatching means adding enough water to get the humidity up around 30% in the incubator.

The problem is that people just throw these terms out there without having a clue about what it actually means.