Decrease temp during lockdown???

[tia]

I am hatching turkey eggs. How many decrease temp during lock down.... Was 99.5. Do I take it down to 98.5?

 

[Fleezie]

Yes, decrease it to 98

 

[yinepu]

I always decrease the temp on turkey eggs during lockdown

 

[tia]

Okay temperature reduced. I have had the humidity at 45 during incubation, because someone said same as chickens. I turned it up to 65 is that too high.... I didn't want to turn it way up...because it has been so low.

 

[Arielle]

Hi Tia,

I've been researching this very question and found some reliable sources.

hope this helps.

Here's the info quoted from his site:

http://www.porterturkeys.com/egghatchingtips.htm



Turkey Egg Hatching Tips

This is some basic info to help you get the most successful hatch possible out of your turkey eggs.

These are my methods and they work for me, if you have a method that works great than by all means continue with it. This is just for those who would like a little guidance.

Before you place eggs in an incubator make sure the temp is regulating at 100.5 to 101.5 degrees for still air machines or 99.5 to 100 degrees for forced air incubators with a relative humidity in the room of 50-60 %.

I recommend a digital thermometer and hygrometer if you don’t have these already .

A lot of people are using the tabletop incubators like the Little Giant Styrofoam ones.

I would highly recommend buying a digital thermometer with the probe that you can insert right thru the Styrofoam to get a reading right at the top portion of the egg.

These can be bought at most Wal-mart stores in the cooking section , it is the same kind you use to insert into whole roasting poultry to take the internal temperature reading .

If your incubator has an auto egg turner place the eggs in the holders large end up. Otherwise just lay them on their sides and turn them over completely to the other side at least 3 times a day.

Now it will take quite a few hours for the eggs to warm up , but if the temp hasn’t reached at least 99. 5 degrees in a 24 hour period turn the temp up a bit more and carefully watch that it doesn’t go above 101.5 degrees, It can get up to 103 and still be safe but this is the maximum temp and if it goes higher it will kill the embryo. So I like to keep it in the middle at a safe range so it has a degree or two to fluctuate either way without doing any damage.

The lowest the temp can be is 99.5 degrees, if it goes lower than this for too long it can kill the embryo as well.

Check the temperature often and make any adjustments needed as it will fluctuate a bit especially in the cheaper tabletop incubators, If you are using a Dickey or GQF cabinet type incubator they pretty much maintain the correct temp without worries.

The first 24 days is considered the incubation period. I don’t add any water at all in the incubator for this time period. You shouldn’t have to unless you are in an extremely dry part of the country with very low humidity below 50%

If you run your incubator in an air conditioned room you may have to add water if your humidity is below 50% in the room.

I have mine set up in my basement and the humidity is ideal down there already .

Now at day 24 the eggs no longer need turning, the last 4 days is the hatching period, the embryo is fully developed in the egg and now it positions itself to hatch and the yolk will start to absorb into the abdomen.

Now at the end of day 24 or 25 take out the turner and put the eggs back in laying on their sides or just move them to your hatcher if you have one. You will now need to decrease your temp. down to 98.0 - 98.5 degrees and also increase the humidity by adding water, and you want the humidity to be at least 80% and if you can get it higher it will make an easier hatch for the poults as it will help to soften the shell.

But make sure you make all these changes to temp and humidity at the same time . Remember this, A combination of high temps and high humidity is a killer. So lower that temp when you raise the humidity.

Your poults should hatch out by the 28 th day, sometimes they will come out a day or two early.

I like to see an early hatch instead of a late one. Most late hatches result in weaker poults that just don’t seem to thrive.

Most early hatched poults are very vigorous and do quite well.



Happy Hatching .

Kevin Porter

 

[tia]

I wonder if they are talking relative humidity 80 seems awfully high. I turn it up to 65 for the ducks.... I just thought turkeys would be lower. I know that you can drown ducks if the humidity is too high.

 

[Gypsy07]

Chicks (and presumably also duckings, poults, peachicks etc) drown when the humidity has been too high all the way through the incubation. There is excess fluid in the egg and when the chick pips internally into teh air cell to start breathing air, it inhales this excess fluid and drowns. The drowning has got nothing to do with high lockdown humidity, it's just that because the chick was alive but then dies during lockdown, it's usually the lockdown humidity that gets blamed and not the earlier too-high humidity.

If the humidity has been correct for the first portion of the incubation and the eggs have lost the correct amount of moisture by the time they enter lockdown, I personally believe that you can bump the humidity almost as high as you like without it having an adverse effect on your chicks. I prefer to run my lockdowns at 75-80%, and the humidity often goes past 85% when the chicks start to hatch. One hatch I did the lockdown humidity sat at 90% for a day and a half, and I didn't have any drowned chicks. Actually, I've never had any drowned chicks.

 

[tia]

Thanks for your help. I learn something new all of the time. Do you think humidity at 65 is okay for turkeys? or should I go even higher then?

 

[Gypsy07]

Quote:
Well, I've never tried hatching turkeys, so follow any advice I give at your own risk, but like I said, if your humidity has been good the first 25 days and your chicks have lost enough moisture already, I don't see how they could drown now unless you dropped the eggs in a pan of water and left them there...

I'm just thinking it through logically, which of course doesn't always work!

Perhaps you could try asking for advice on the turkey section of the forum. There's a guy called AT Hagan on here who always seems to give pretty sensible advice and I'm sure I remember him posting a while ago about hatching turkeys.

 

[yinepu]

Quote:
Porter's recommends 80% during lockdown.. which is how I have always done it as well.. in my experience turkey egg membranes are a lot tougher than chicken eggs.. so I bump mine way up just to make it easier on the poults