Any and all advice welcomed as I start incubating turkey and duck eggs!

[Brittwearsboots]

I recently embarked on the journey of incubating our eggs that I believe to be fertile. Our tom turkey does his strutting quite regularly and his two hens follow him around like crazy. And it's ridiculous how often I see our drake "loving" his 3 ladies. I guess what I am asking is for any pointers, personal experiences, and such relating to hatching both turkeys and ducks. Our first attempt at hatching ducks was one healthy hatch out of 7 eggs. All were fertile and developing well until day 25 when I took the turner out. I believe that I may have ruined their chances by candling them again after the turner was out, and one trooper made it through. Anyways, I have a 2 turkey eggs in one smaller incubator that I started yesterday (the tom was laying on them and I didn't want to stop their incubating by putting them at room temperature), and am trying to accumulate a little more eggs from both my turkeys and ducks before starting them in my bigger incubator that holds quite a bit more eggs. If anyone has successfully hatched either or breeds, Royal Palm turkeys or Welsh Harlequin ducks, please feel free to share. I do know that turkeys and ducks take the same amount of time, humidity(both incubation and hatching temps) in the incubator, but if there are any quirks or tricks, I'd love to know! Thank you!

 

[Chickiemom25]

I am running my 2nd batch of muscovey ducks right now. They take a little longer to hatch than other ducks. Personally I can never get the hatch day right, so typically I let them start to pip and then take the turner out. I keep humidity high 65-72% and have not had a problem. My incubator comes up in humidity within minutes of closing the lid. I am running multiple species in the same incubator and moving them for hatching to a separate incubator. Sorry I cant help with turkeys

 

[Brittwearsboots]

What humidity level do you keep it at for incubating before hatching? We bought the styrofoam little giant bator and it seems to stay the exact same temp but the humidity was at 70 for the first few days and then dropped to 45 or so. Somebody also told me that high humidity is good for duck eggs throughout the process, and it's good to spray them with water to cool them once a day. Is that something you do or have done? I'm still researching the turkey egg hatching process.

 

[Chickiemom25]

What humidity level do you keep it at for incubating before hatching? We bought the styrofoam little giant bator and it seems to stay the exact same temp but the humidity was at 70 for the first few days and then dropped to 45 or so. Somebody also told me that high humidity is good for duck eggs throughout the process, and it's good to spray them with water to cool them once a day. Is that something you do or have done? I'm still researching the turkey egg hatching process.

I have been at about 55% with this clutch, not dropping below 45%. I have not sprayed

 

[Brittwearsboots]

45 is the lowest it has gone, but I'm trying to keep it balanced at a stable temp. It's been somewhat difficult working 10 hours a day, but I'm on a mission lol.