Candled my turkey eggs today

[cowdogcadillac]

Whoo Hoo,,,,,,,candled my turkey eggs I've been bringing home from my pen and I have 9-10 moving pretty well. First time with incubator and it seems to be working well. Now I guess the next trick is to get them all the way to hatching and then thru the early stages. Just hoping all goes well as I am not a fan of buying them at 10-15 bucks each. Setting up a brooder box for when they hatch( I will be out of town so wifey has the pleasure).My question is I have eggs from 3/31 and 4/4. right before the 3/31s are scheduled to hatch she should remove the egg turner and lay all eggs on sides turning them once or twice a day? How long to leave hatched chicks in incubator? This is a whole new experience but I will get it down after this.

 

[sweeterdeeter42]

I have eggs from 3/21-3/29 and eggs from 3/31-4/4. What I am doing is taking the first batch out before lockdown and putting them in a LG incubator that I am using as a hatcher. Then I can keep adding new eggs every week to the incubator and have continuous staggered hatches until I get tired of it. I saw a few threads about it on here.........
I have Royal Palms.

 

[cowdogcadillac]

I don't really want to get another incubator although that is a great idea. What else can I do right before my first batch hatches?Interesting thing with this breeding is I have BBB hens and a royal palm and Narraganset
toms so they will be a strange cross

 

[Dogfish]

I took out half of my egg turning racks (little giants just snap out) when it was time to go into lockdown. That way the other eggs would still turn. I put the eggs that were in lockdown in cut down styrofoam egg cartons with the bottom removed (air circulation).

I left the chicks in there for 24 hours after the first hatched after they had dried, made a grab for them (5 seconds) in a hot and humid room, and closed it back up as there was one egg that hadn't pipped or anything. That egg hatched a day later and I moved him to the brooder when he was dry.

My other incubator was full of pheasant eggs, but I bought another one to up my incubator inventory to 3 to use one specifically as a hatcher for future broods that are in the other incubators. Depend if you are doing low volume or high volume. If you plan on hatching out over the next few months, I would buy another for use as a hatcher.