Can someone give me the low down on hatching turkey eggs?

[newlifecowgirl]

In my newly found love of birds I have decided to try and hatch turkey eggs. I know they need to be incubated at approx. 100 degrees, require about 55% humidity. Can someone give me the best tecniques or any secrets to hatching turkey eggs? I am picking some fertilized Blue Slate heritage turkey eggs next week,

 

[Dogfish]

I use my Little Giant with the turners. 99.5 with forced air, same humidity. I just use the regular chicken racks.

28 days total, candle at 10-12 days, cull the bad ones that are dead, have blood rings, etc. They develop slower, so 12 days is actually better. I'm assuming you know what to look for. I look for veins near the airsack, and movement of the embyo using a 100 lumen Streamlight flashlight. It works very well.

At day 25 place upright, aircell up, in styrofoam egg cartons with no lid (sorry, you never know how literal some folks take things). Lock the incubator down and don't open it until all have hatched. That is all I do.

Good luck!

 

[Jocasta]

I've only hatched them once but did get a 100% hatch

(a whole three days ago lol)

I had my humidity at 50% for the incubation period and then 70% for lockdown. I didn't use the carton method for lockdown and instead just laid them down on their sides. I keep hearing that turkeys are difficult to hatch but I got a much better rate with my turkeys than I did with the chickens!

They are harder to raise once hatched too, you need to "teach" them to eat and drink. A lot of people start chickens off at the same time and then when the poults hatch, they have week old chicks to "train" them how to eat and drink. I haven't had a problem with mine although I did dip all their beaks in water several times for the first two days and placed their starter crumb on tin foil to encourage them to peck at it.

Turkey poults succumb to the cold quickly too and must be kept warm and dry once out of the incubator. I've heard it so many times on this board "a cold or wet poult equals a dead poult".

I absolutely love the little critters though - they are much friendlier than chickens and I personally think they have much more character.

 

[Kekko]

Quote:
This is so true! I had a waterer leak and got the flooring wet in my turkey brood box with 20 (3 day old) poults in it. when I found it 5 were wet & dead! The temperature was at 90 but they were wet. Managed to save the rest of them and threw the cracked waterer in the trash!

Keep them Dry & warm!