Hatching Turkeys - what went wrong??

[wsand]

We have just hatched our first Narragansett turkey eggs. Incubated 11 eggs - over 24 hours after the first poult hatched we had 7 poults all fluffy, fumbling around in the incubator and pecking at the glass when we used the pen light to check on them. The other four eggs showed no signs of life. We opened the incubator quickly in intervals to remove 1-2 at a time to the brooder and allow the heat to reset to 99 1/2 between openings. (We don't have a humidity gage so I cannot say how that was holding, but there was plenty of water in the reservoir and moisture in the corners of the windows.) On the final (4th?) opening I rolled the last four eggs over and found 2 had pipped - one actually had a rather large opening on the underside which looked a little sunken in, so I was immediately concerned, the other looked like just a normal first pip with some healthy cracking around it. We repositioned these where we could watch and listen for further progress, but it's 36 hours from the first hatch and there is absolutely no sign of life. We've hatched chickens the last two years in the same incubator and realize that maintaining humidity and temp during the hatching process is critical, but the seven poults were definitely ready to be moved and we were really careful to move fast in transitioning them. Did we kill these last two by opening the incubator? Is there any reason why a chick might begin to hatch and then simply not make it? How long can hatched poults stay in the incubator before they need to come out at the risk of the other unhatched eggs??

We are thrilled with our seven healthy little Narragansetts, but we only plan to use one or two for Thanksgiving and keep the rest to sustain and hatch new flocks in the years to come, so any help you can give us to avoid future mistakes would be greatly appreciated!

 

[dbcooper02]

Hatched poults, chicks, whatever can remain in the incubator 48 hours easily. They have just absorbed their yolk and have no need of food or water right away. Their jostling of the other eggs is less of a hazard to the them than the loss of humidity from opening the incubator.
With the other 7 hatched if I had found those 2 piped eggs I probably would have assumed they were ready but stuck and started chipping away the shell and helped them out at that point. The opening of the incubator likely shrink wrapped them, but i wouldn't go so far as to say you killed them. Hatching eggs is a learning process and I still learn new things all the time after several years at it. Enjoy the 7 you got and strive to do better next time.
db

 

[wsand]

Thanks for the reply. I didn't realize they could stay in there for up to 48 hours - next time I'll ignore their pecking at the glass. I did end up attempting to assist the one that look questionable and it was dead - no sign of having been shrink-wrapped though. When I initially moved it and found the sunken opening, it was actually stuck to the floor of the incubator by a piece of (placenta?) from another hatched egg. I wonder this could have had something to do with it. No clue about the other one with the normal crack - I still have it in there, but I doubt it or the other 2 are going to hatch.
In the meantime the others are happy, healthy, eating and drinking so I'll count my lucky seven blessings.