Can chickens hatch turkey eggs?

[FathertoFeathers]

I have some royal palm eggs that my turkey hens laid and they are developing. One of my turkey hens (Delia) is sitting on her clutch but my Serama hen (pancake) is hell bent on hatching some turkey eggs too. She steals two eggs from Delia and sits on them. She can completely cover two and I’ve even seen her cover three but I don’t know if it’s possible for a chicken to hatch out a turkey egg. This is my first time hatching turkey eggs so I’m pretty new at this.

 

[The-White-Elephant]

I have some royal palm eggs that my turkey hens laid and they are developing. One of my turkey hens (Delia) is sitting on her clutch but my Serama hen (pancake) is hell bent on hatching some turkey eggs too. She steals two eggs from Delia and sits on them. She can completely cover two and I’ve even seen her cover three but I don’t know if it’s possible for a chicken to hatch out a turkey egg. This is my first time hatching turkey eggs so I’m pretty new at this.

I think thy technically could, but this is my opinion. If she’s determined, I think she can.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Yes, but that may cause problems considering her size and the turkey size. She can cover them now, but turkeys grow really fast as pouts and they're likely to step on her as they get older

 

[Lizzy733]

Yes, but that may cause problems considering her size and the turkey size. She can cover them now, but turkeys grow really fast as pouts and they're likely to step on her as they get older

This is very true - they will be her size by the time they're ready to be off-heat. She absolutely could, but it may not be sustainable in the long run.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I suppose you could always let her hatch and then take them away, but that seems mean unless you can graft her onto a smaller chick

 

[Bcoz18]

Most definitely a possibility but turkey eggs take 28 days to hatch and chicken eggs take 21 which means the chicken sure will sit on the eggs but their body knows when 21 days are up and will discard the eggs or abandoned them

 

[JustBabyMargo]

My hen hatched a turkey egg out, and there were no problems. Chickens will wait as long as they need before they have chicks, this is why they are so hard to break. Her poult didn’t get that big, and she didn’t step all over her mother or anything. They were together for longer than most mothers are with chicks, and they actually ended up becoming friends, in the end. That poult is almost a year old now, and she is my favorite. She is a bit different from the others, and I wonder if it is because she was raised by a hen.

 

[Chickie Burton]

I realize this reply is over a year after the original question, but I now have actual, factual information to share! YES, broody hens can and DO successfully hatch out turkey eggs. I allowed 4 of my hens to remain broody this year, only robbing them of chicken eggs and placing turkey eggs under them instead. The hens don't care that it takes an extra week before they hatch because by the 21st day (when chicks would normally hatch) they are so committed to the nest, there is no way they would leave until those babies hatch! They are super protective mothers and even though their "babies" are larger than their chicken counterparts at the same age, the mother hens take care of them just the same. I have noticed that the poults (the baby turkeys) don't come running when the hen calls them for food quite as quickly as chicks, but I think it's because turkeys are just more "chill" than chickens. My current group of poults is about 5 weeks old. One evening last week the hen called them in to the coop with the rest of the chickens (I had kept them in a separate, small coop to begin with) and ever since then they have started roosting with the rest of the chickens. I've had much greater success with hatching turkeys under chicken hens than I have had allowing turkeys to hatch their own.

 

[The Birb King]

They can I have seen it done before. But those turkeys will get way bigger than their mom in just a few weeks. Lol