Incubating Turkeys

[shwalk]

Looking for suggestions on what I'm doing wrong. Incubating turkey eggs (heritage breed) and all looks fine until they are due to hatch. Most are dead. Am using Janoel 24 egg incubator with no humidity reading. Mostly dry incubate. Add water 1-2 times, then a lot more water about day 26. Temp is set to 38 deg C. Incubator sitting on wooden table. No thunderstorms. Ducks and chickens in another incubator sitting next to the turkey incubator are hatching okay. Any ideas what might be going wrong?

 

[R2elk]

Looking for suggestions on what I'm doing wrong. Incubating turkey eggs (heritage breed) and all looks fine until they are due to hatch. Most are dead. Am using Janoel 24 egg incubator with no humidity reading. Mostly dry incubate. Add water 1-2 times, then a lot more water about day 26. Temp is set to 38 deg C. Incubator sitting on wooden table. No thunderstorms. Ducks and chickens in another incubator sitting next to the turkey incubator are hatching okay. Any ideas what might be going wrong?

What is your ambient humidity?

I strongly suggest that you get a small indoor/outdoor thermometer with humidity. put the outdoor sensor inside the iincubator after you check the humidity accuracy with a salt test.

It could be as simple as your turkeys being too closely related or using too high humidity for the incubating phase.

Do you have the air vents open?

 

[shwalk]

Thanks. Yes, I close the air vent 2 days before due to hatch. We live in a cool climate. Ambient humidity would be low most of the time.

 

[R2elk]

Thanks. Yes, I close the air vent 2 days before due to hatch. We live in a cool climate. Ambient humidity would be low most of the time.

Do not close the air vent. They need even more air during the hatch than during the incubation period.

Control the humidity by the surface area of the water. Increase the surface area of the water to increase the humidity, decrease the surface area of the water to decrease the humidity.

Saying the ambient humidity is low doesn't tell me anything. If you don't know the smbient humidity you can find it out by checking with a local weather site.