Incubating Turkey eggs

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i had a feeling you were an expert! i've never heard of Tek Trol, will have to look that up. i cleaned my incubator with a mild bleach solution. But when it continued to smell like bleach after rinsing and sun drying, i freaked and switched out the bottom (i have a couple of the foam incubators). i'm using a Genesis HovaBator, forced air with thermostat control. i did wipe off some of the eggs that were very dirty. Hope that will be okay.

Not sure i want to raise turkeys as a hobby. My friend gave them to me, and i thought they looked cool - like dinosaur eggs. i also think turkeys make such a cool sound. Anyhow, we'll see how it goes.

As for hi-jacking threads, i seem to have taken over the thread from the very nice person who started it.

 

[greeneggsandham]

Thank you everyone for the responses. I have set 7 turkey eggs this morning wish me luck.

 

[Sjisty]

Good luck greeneggsandham! I just hatched 9 out of 12 Royal Palm eggs. I treated them the same as my chicken eggs - same turner, same heat and humidity levels. These were shipped eggs. One did not develop, two were quitters, but I have nine poults in the brooder this morning - that's a lot of turkeys!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Quote:
I almost bought a can of Tek Trol at the show last weekend, but it was twelve bucks which deterred me.

I sanitized all of my turkey eggs as well using a tablespoon of plain laundry bleach in a gallon of warm water. Same as you I did not scrub them. Just soaked them for about thirty seconds or so then allowed them to drain. Sounds like I should have soaked them longer though.

Don't freak out if you loose power during incubation, several hours of cooling won't kill the embryo. It may delay your hatch a day or so.

I've been wondering at that. I have the Dickey plugged into a surge suppressor, but power failures had me thinking of whether I should put it on a UPS. Fortunately most of our outages do not last more than an hour or two so for now I think I'll leave it as is.

This has been a good thread. Thanks to everyone who has contributed.

.....Alan.​

 

[turkey guru]

my recipe depending on incubator, at day 25 I lay egg on its side so it can't be bumped or moved, add more water(stand up a sponge) and add more air open 3 -1" vents! and even the best hatcheys only run about 60/70% on average I run about 71/73% it will pick up a little as it warms up I have 159 eggs (turkey) in one incubator, and started the second one today!! tom

 

[chickychix]

Ok i am going to try to incubate my first turkey eggs in a couple of days but kind of confused on the humidity. I read somewhere that you check the humidity in the room not the incubator?? Is this true??

 

[zekii]

Just candled my 16 midget white eggs one is clear 15 are solid with a nice air cell. I have been keeping my humidity in the 30 to 40% range only adding small amounts of water when is falls below this range. My hatch window is April 6th thru 8th, I'll be moving the eggs to to a different incubator to hatch.

One question since this is my 1st turkey egg incubation..
on the 1 clear egg on day 16 I assume it should just get tossed ?

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

chickychix - i've never heard of checking the humidity in the room rather than the incubator. The humidity in the room will effect the humidity in the incubator, but go by the gauge inside the incubator. Best to use several humidity gauges as i find mine always vary, so i put in three and then average it out.

zekil - i would toss that clear one. i'm incubating goose eggs right now and have four with great development, then one clear egg and another that looks very strange - some development then a second air cell, definitely not right. i'll be tossing those two today.

 

[Zootopia]

chickychix - i've never heard of checking the humidity in the room rather than the incubator. The humidity in the room will effect the humidity in the incubator, but go by the gauge inside the incubator. Best to use several humidity gauges as i find mine always vary, so i put in three and then average it out.

You can calibrate your gauge. You need 1/4 Cup table salt in a mug, 1/2 cup of warm water, a gallon size ziplock bag. Mix water into salt, will be the consistancy of wet sand place in bag put guage in bag away from mug and close tightly. Wait 8 hours the humidity in the bag will be 75%. Check your gauge thru the bag and if it says 66% you will be adding 4 to it when you read it, if it says 80% you will need to subtract 5 from the reading. Obviously if yours is adjustible, you should do that.

 

[Cottage Rose]

I'm getting my first ever turkey hatching eggs this week!

I've artificially incubated chicken, duck and geese eggs over the years, with geese being my main focus for the last 7 yrs.
I keep the incubator temp at 99 and I do not add any water the first 25 days as geese eggs tend to have issues with not drying down
enough and only bump humidity up AFTER they external pip according to Pete55 our geese incubating expert friend and that seems
to of helped prevent weak pipping goslings and goslings coming out with big waterlogged heads.
Are any of these issues a concern with turkeys?
Also how long do you daily cool turkey eggs and do you mist them when cooling?
If hand turning how many times daily do you do that?
Any tips most appreciated. THANK YOU!