HELP!! 29th day on eggs is this normal?

[bfran134]

hello im new to turkeys and my hen has been laying on her eggs for the 29th day now.. is this normal? i never checked her eggs for fertility bc i didnt want to disturb her nest.. she was penned up with a tom so i assumed they would have been fertile... how can i tell if these eggs will hatch or not? she is very consitant on sitting on these eggs! should i expect babies any time now or is my hen wasting her time?

 

[Komaki]

Don't panic till day 35. Nature is her own reward. Since you did not candle, you may need to use your nose. Good luck. And hang in there. But don't open the bator!

 

[Denninmi]

Yes, its not unusual -- I think the figure of X days for a given species is kind of a best case scenario -- the most vigorous hatch out on day X, the rest take an extra day or two.

You would really only know for sure by candling the eggs, but I wouldn't want to disturb her at this point. I hope she does well -- there is another thread on here with photos of the poults from a first-time mother. Unfortunately, I let one of mine sit on a clutch of eggs, and she didn't do well at all. She had about 14 total, but only had 4 or 5 of them actually up where she was keeping warm. The rest were buried down in the deep litter underneath. The ones she was trying to incubate were all just rotten stink bombs, and the ones buried were not even starting to develop. I felt bad about taking them from her, but I put the undeveloped ones in the incubator and they are now developing, have about 9-10 days to go.