Hatch question

[affacat]

I have a baby turkey chick that just hatched in my incubator. I also have chicks hatching with a natural mom. How long should I leave the baby chick in the incubator until I take it to the mama and try to sneak it in.

 

[Auntiejessi3]

@CluckNDoodle

 

[affacat]

Thanks for any responses, I don't want to make any mistakes. The baby chick has barely any room in the incubator, and I'm pretty sure the momma will take her, but I wonder if they need a little bit of time in the incubator to close up, etc

 

[affacat]

 

[Ridgerunner]

The turkey poult needs to be dry. I'd wait until dark and slip it under her, being careful not to crush a chick doing that.

 

[affacat]

The turkey poult needs to be dry. I'd wait until dark and slip it under her, being careful not to crush a chick doing that.

Unfortunately, I got this a little bit late as while I was waiting I noticed the turkey was stuck in the incubator with her leg in one of the grooves. I was worried she'd get hurt so carefully brought her out and put her under mama. Hopefully it works out

 

[CluckNDoodle]

You don't need to wait for the chick to dry when putting it under a hen so that's ok. Some hens readily accept new chicks and others do not. It sounds like she took the baby no problems though?

 

[affacat]

You don't need to wait for the chick to dry when putting it under a hen so that's ok. Some hens readily accept new chicks and others do not. It sounds like she took the baby no problems though?

It was like she didn't even notice.

And I'm glad I did because we noticed an odor - one of the eggs under her had broken and was maggot ridden. Unfortunately this means some neighboring eggs were gunky.

We moved momma temporarily, and I removed all the gunk and put the gunky eggs to the side. We moved the rest of her clutch to a slightly new position, and she immediately returned and we gave her the chick again.

Then we took the stinky gunked up eggs inside and took a chance... We moved all the eggs from our smaller incubator to our larger one, then I misted all the stinky eggs in hydrogen peroxide and gave them their own incubator.

We lost an entire clutch of chicken eggs a few weeks ago to a similar issue, so i figured the light hydrogen peroxide misting might be worth a try, since not doing anything didn't work and washing them probably wouldn't work.

 

[Auntiejessi3]

 

[CluckNDoodle]

It was like she didn't even notice.

And I'm glad I did because we noticed an odor - one of the eggs under her had broken and was maggot ridden. Unfortunately this means some neighboring eggs were gunky.

We moved momma temporarily, and I removed all the gunk and put the gunky eggs to the side. We moved the rest of her clutch to a slightly new position, and she immediately returned and we gave her the chick again.

Then we took the stinky gunked up eggs inside and took a chance... We moved all the eggs from our smaller incubator to our larger one, then I misted all the stinky eggs in hydrogen peroxide and gave them their own incubator.

We lost an entire clutch of chicken eggs a few weeks ago to a similar issue, so i figured the light hydrogen peroxide misting might be worth a try, since not doing anything didn't work and washing them probably wouldn't work.

Wow! I'm sorry to hear about the icky egg situation but I'm glad your have a reliable broody momma!