Hatching Turkey eggs..?

[pinkytyler]

just wondering when i put my turkey eggs in the incubator do i turn them every day from the day i put them in until the 25th day?

 

[FowlLady44]

Hi, I am responding to someone else's 1st time turkey HATCHING

, me too! So we have 3 eggs out in our turkey pen that our hen layed last weekend. As soon as our incubator reaches 100 degrees, I plan on going out to take one of the eggs from the hen. I have tried to research the needed humidity for the incubator once the egg is in it. Do you have any ideas? Thank you!

 

[GreyhoundGrrrl]

Does anyone have photos of the eggs they are hatching? My boyfriend works at the local feed store and they have a lot of turkeys, chickens, and peacocks that they let wander the premises. Last Friday he brought home an egg that he thinks is a turkey egg. I doubt it will hatch but I put it under one of my broody chickens and for the past week she has been looking after it along with 3 other eggs. I'm having some trouble finding photos of turkey eggs that correspond with the breed they came from. We're looking into getting a few turkeys this year, the feed store where he works will be getting them in mid-May but if we can hatch this one for free, why not?

 

[farm n louisana]

I found somebody that sells turkey eggs for 3 dollars each is that a good price for a turkey egg that fertile do u hatch them the same as chicken eggs

 

[roxysmydog]

I just paid $10 for 4 heritage breed fertile turkey eggs. This is my first time hatching as well so I will be doing some research first.

 

[laura29532]

I've learned by trial and error, hope this helps..unlike chickens, hatching turkeys are somewhat different..I use a still air incubator..Temp at 101.5 for first 24 days and humidity at 20 %… unless it's real dry where your set up is..(winters here are very humid,so I use 20 % ,checking it with a meat thermometer in the air vent hole,summers are hot and dry and air conditioning takes humidity out of the air so 35-40 % summers.)
Making sure temps never go below 99°… on day 24 you remove Turner,raise humidity to 80% and drop temp to 98/ 99° at the same time..!! Never keep high temps and high humidity, embryos will die quickly at this stage..always..change these at the same time during lock down stage...this seems to work very well for me..I was getting hatch rates of 10- 20 % until I read and used this method..now my hatching rate is above 80%… before I would have great progress during the first three weeks and dead chicks in the shells during hatch times..not sure why but they do better with less heat when you raise the humidity the last few days of hatching..humidity is very tricky during hatching with turkeys..Hope this helps..happier hatching...

 
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[laura29532]

I use still air...temp 101.5 very humid here in winter so I do 20% humidity ..on day 24 I remove eggs from Turner, up humidity to 80 % and lower temp to 99°… lock down the last 4 days for hatching..I had little success in hatch rates until I used this method..
It seems with turkeys you need to up the humidity and lower the temp all at the same time during the last days..my chicks were during in the eggs the last days of incubating..I'm told they need the higher humidity to crack their eggs but will actually drown with higher temps during this time..make sure you do this all at the same time during the lock down stage days24-28 ...Hope this helps..happy hatching..

 

[JacquelineJ]

I've learned by trial and error, hope this helps..unlike chickens, hatching turkeys are somewhat different..I use a still air incubator..Temp at 101.5 for first 24 days and humidity at 20 %… unless it's real dry where your set up is..(winters here are very humid,so I use 20 % ,checking it with a meat thermometer in the air vent hole,summers are hot and dry and air conditioning takes humidity out of the air so 35-40 % summers.)
Making sure temps never go below 99°… on day 24 you remove Turner,raise humidity to 80% and drop temp to 98/ 99° at the same time..!! Never keep high temps and high humidity, embryos will die quickly at this stage..always..change these at the same time during lock down stage...this seems to work very well for me..I was getting hatch rates of 10- 20 % until I read and used this method..now my hatching rate is above 80%… before I would have great progress during the first three weeks and dead chicks in the shells during hatch times..not sure why but they do better with less heat when you raise the humidity the last few days of hatching..humidity is very tricky during hatching with turkeys..Hope this helps..happier hatching...

[/QUOTE]

I really wish in all my reading i had seen this 24 days ago. it would seem i am destine to learn everything about turkey hatching the hard way.
I've lost all but one egg (it's day 24) i followed advice about 50% - 55% humidity and now i'm in the home stretch with one survivor with a day 10 size air cell. I've dropped the humidity to 20% and i am hoping the egg is a few days behind schedule so i can get the air cell bigger. I'm going to up humidity as soon as i see a pip but holding out til then... which is all i can think to do.

 

[R2elk]

I really wish in all my reading i had seen this 24 days ago. it would seem i am destine to learn everything about turkey hatching the hard way.
I've lost all but one egg (it's day 24) i followed advice about 50% - 55% humidity and now i'm in the home stretch with one survivor with a day 10 size air cell. I've dropped the humidity to 20% and i am hoping the egg is a few days behind schedule so i can get the air cell bigger. I'm going to up humidity as soon as i see a pip but holding out til then... which is all i can think to do.

Be careful what posts that you believe. What works for others may not work for you especially if the person posting is using an inaccurate hygrometer.

I try to incubate my turkey eggs with the humidity at approximately 30% and 60 - 70% for lockdown. Many of the cheap hygrometers will only read down to 20% humidity and once the reading gets that low you don't know what the humidity is whether it be 0% or 20% or somewhere in between.

At lockdown raising the humidity to 80% for turkey eggs especially ones with too small of air cells will drown the poults before they can hatch.

Since you are already at day 24, you are too close to hatching to be dropping the humidity to 20%. There isn't enough time left to get the air cell size increased to what you think it should be. If you lost all but one egg using 50 - 55% humidity, it is likely that you have other issues than humidity causing the losses.

Good luck.

Many experienced hatchers rely simply on air cell size rather than actual humidity.

 

[duluthralphie]

I just paid $10 for 4 heritage breed fertile turkey eggs. This is my first time hatching as well so I will be doing some research first.

I like you! Can I sell you some heritage turkey eggs?

I echo what R2elk says. I hatch mine differently than he does. BUT he lives somewhere the ambient humidity is 20% I live where it pushes 75-80% most days. I hatch my turkeys eggs right with my chicken eggs. I just put them in a week earlier. I run 45% or try to and then up to 70% on last couple days. I also have the temps at 99.5 or as close to it as I can get. The temp is not as important as the humidity IMHO. Just do not over heat them.

I have a cabinet incubator so I have moving air.