BROODING AND LAYING AT THE SAME TIME

[nchls school]

We have a midget white turkey hen that has been brooding for two weeks. Candling shows that every egg is developing. The hen has also been laying eggs at the same time; seven so far. she laid 17 before going broody and has laid the 7 since then. We left the hen with 13 eggs and have set the rest under bantam broody hens. Any thoughts as to why the brooding turkey keeps laying eggs??
This is her second clutch; the first time she did not lay additional eggs after going broody.

 

[Little Chicken Girl]

My Brood hen (best broody I have ever owned) often lays a few eggs after going broody. My broody RIR did the same thing. However, the egg-laying rate is minimal (just a couple per wk).
As far as why this is, I haven't the slightest idea!
Hopefully an expert views this thread so we can both find out!

 

[nchls school]

Thanks for the reply. As of this morning she has laid a total of 24 eggs. As the extras are laid I pu them under bantams. Right now I'm having an explosion of hens going broody. Two more have gone broody today. I candled the turkey eggs last night and all that have been brooded long enough to tell are viable and developing. This keeps up I'm going to have a lot of poults hatching next month.

 

[lazy gardener]

You're gonna have a lot of banty's wondering why her 'Lil' Bubba is so big!

 

[nchls school]

And they're serama bantams; all less than a pound-able to brood two turkey eggs. If possible, I'll give the poults back to the turkey hen to raise as they get too large for the serama to care for.

 

[nchls school]

The first poult hatched this morning of 13 eggs under the turkey. Many more are pipped. All are viable/alive. I expect all to hatch. I put another six eggs under bantams that are also hatching. The turkey hen has kept laying eggs while brooding which are also under bantams. All together the hen has laid 29 eggs. Candling shows that 27 are fertile and developing. The last two eggs are not to the point where they can be candled.

Today 19 poults are hatching. Can the Midget white turkey hen care for 19 poults as it would be easier than having the small bantams raise poults that would soon be larger than the bantam hen???

 

[R2elk]

The first poult hatched this morning of 13 eggs under the turkey. Many more are pipped. All are viable/alive. I expect all to hatch. I put another six eggs under bantams that are also hatching. The turkey hen has kept laying eggs while brooding which are also under bantams. All together the hen has laid 29 eggs. Candling shows that 27 are fertile and developing. The last two eggs are not to the point where they can be candled.

Today 19 poults are hatching. Can the Midget white turkey hen care for 19 poults as it would be easier than having the small bantams raise poults that would soon be larger than the bantam hen???

I had a bantam hen hatch and raise a turkey poult. She did just fine. One thing, I never had to worry about was the bantam squashing the poult by stepping on it. BTW, my bantams were free ranging at the time.

 

[nchls school]

Thanks for the reply.

My wife corrected me; there was 17 eggs hatching-all pipped, buuttt...two died in the shell and two others died shortly after hatching (not sure what went wrong). So we ended up with 13 poults-12 are healthy and one not so much so. Hopefully the 13 survive.

Surprisingly, 4 poults are brown and a white one has a faint stripe down its back. Obviously my midget white hen mated with a standard bronze tom that I thought to be too young to breed (he hadn't started to strut or gooble). Possibly, his young age is why the 4 poults died in the shell or shortly after hatching?????????

 

[R2elk]

Thanks for the reply.

My wife corrected me; there was 17 eggs hatching-all pipped, buuttt...two died in the shell and two others died shortly after hatching (not sure what went wrong). So we ended up with 13 poults-12 are healthy and one not so much so. Hopefully the 13 survive.

Surprisingly, 4 poults are brown and a white one has a faint stripe down its back. Obviously my midget white hen mated with a standard bronze tom that I thought to be too young to breed (he hadn't started to strut or gobble). Possibly, his young age is why the 4 poults died in the shell or shortly after hatching?????????

Yearling toms are normally the best breeders. It is very unlikely that the age of the tom has anything to do with why the poults did not survive. My guess is that the most likely reason they died was from getting chilled by not being able to stay covered by the hen at a critical time.

White turkeys can carry a lot of hidden color genes because the recessive white hides all the other traits. Not saying it is but Sweetgrass poults start out as white with a faint stripe down their back.

 

[nchls school]

Thanks for the reply. The tom was far less than a year old at the time of mating- quite immature looking. Four of the poults from the midget white are the brown with stripes like a bronze chick. Very different from her first clutch which were all the yellow of a midget white chick.