I found their nest!!!!!

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Being a scary old man with a gas hog truck, I have the buyers come to the house. It is amazing how many of my buyers turn out to be pretty young women. Or maybe I just have selective memory and only recall the pretty women.

Well I’m a middle aged woman with a soccer mom van, so not terribly intimidating. My teen DD is incredibly gorgeous (to me anyway!) so there’s no way in heck I’m letting her go off alone to any of these public meeting sales, or having random people drop by our house! It’s worked fine and been good practice for her to work on advertising and communicating with people. It’s taken those skills acquired in Girl Scout cookie sales to a whole new level! I hope she talks about her ag business in her college applications as I think it’s really helped prepare her for her future life.

 

[sunnie7]

Looks like I was defeated by the raccoon. He broke one of my fake eggs and has stole two. Ate the cat food in the trap and left a poop surprise for me. My guineas have moved their nest. Hopefully I’ll have a decent hatch out of the 22 eggs I put in the incubator.

 

[R2elk]

Looks like I was defeated by the raccoon. He broke one of my fake eggs and has stole two. Ate the cat food in the trap and left a poop surprise for me. My guineas have moved their nest. Hopefully I’ll have a decent hatch out of the 22 eggs I put in the incubator.
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You probably did not have the release set light enough on the trap. Keep baiting the trap. I use eggs for the bait.

When you set the release make sure that it is only far enough under the wire to keep the door from falling down. If you push it far enough that the wire is touching the back of the little hook, it will not require a light enough touch to trip it. When mine is set properly, it will even trip for a song bird.

I had to stake my trap down because a huge raccoon would just pick up the back end of the trap and dump out the egg.

 

[sunnie7]

I put my eggs in the incubator 6 days ago. I have 6 other eggs....should I stick them in there too or will increasing the humidity for hatch of the other mess them up?

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

I put my eggs in the incubator 6 days ago. I have 6 other eggs....should I stick them in there too or will increasing the humidity for hatch of the other mess them up?

You can put them in, but then you need to figure out what you’ll do with the high humidity that you need at hatching. I ended up setting the humidity higher when I saw an internal pip, then lowering after the hatch. However, a second incubator as a hatcher is better so you don’t subject the younger eggs to high humidity for a few days. You’ll also have keets that hatch nearly a week after the rest... I had that dilemma and ended up with a cage within the brooder for new keets. Your two sets might be close enough in age that the older keets will accept the younger ones.

 

[dwlacy]

That is one way of storing them. It is recommended to alternate which end of the carton is up 3 times daily.

do I store my turkey eggs the same way? point end down, elevate one end & rotate it three times a day? will they keep 7-10 before they need to be incubated?

thanks....

 

[R2elk]

do I store my turkey eggs the same way? point end down, elevate one end & rotate it three times a day? will they keep 7-10 before they need to be incubated?

thanks....

Yes, although I have stored them for up to 3 weeks without any serious decrease in hatchability. I do store mine in the basement where the temperature is pretty cool and the humidity is higher.

 

[dwlacy]

thank you for that info....

no basement, but with no central heat or air my house stays cooler then outside, except during the summer....