May Hatch-a-Long!

[Farmer Viola]

The 7 turkeys that have hatched so far.

This is until all the hatching is done and I know these guys are eating and drinking. Once I see them eat and drink they go into the big bin.

cute little turkeys!

17 days? Is this the time they take? I did buttons once..they were sooo cute and tiny. We need photos when yours hatch..here are mine..
Then older. They sure do change in coloring.

I cannot get over how SMALL they are in the first pic!!!

Interesting. We grew these my whole young life. I feed mine 2 a day and only what they can eat in 1/2 hour. I let them outside and they eat grass and such. My dad never let them out but I clean the pen frequently a mb d it's easier without them. I will have to see if they taste any different. I know restricted food helps with leg issues from gaining weight too fast.

well you are definitely much more qualified than myself! I am no expert , I just raised cornishX the one time.. my husband and I looked up the "how to " online and we did restrict their feed, but not as much as you do. that sounds very different. I think it was 12hrs at first when they were little, then 8, then 6 then 4 hrs of feed. maybe we were just giving them too much feed then? we were literally having to clean the pen out daily. luckily we did not have any leg issues, but 1 did keel over on processing day and I think it must have been heart attack...

this PDF describes different classifications of chickens as meat based on age, broilers, fryers, roasters, etc using heritage chickens as the traditional farmer did. this is sort of the direction we want to go in. basically, having some pure breeds in the egglaying flock who are allowed to mix and create mongrels which are dual purpose (eg marans x wyandotte) and should hopefully have a decent amount of meat when we process around 16 weeks. we also grow out & process the excess males of the purebreeds (wyandottes, marans) for the table

 

[Farmer Viola]

day 14 incubator #1 - set 44
removed 1 BCM x wyandotte egg that looks clear, now at 35 of 41 originally set. all the rest look alive and well! good veining, nice air cells, moving around in there. fun time to candle


day 7 incubator #2 - set 36
looks like I have about 6 clears of 36, going to leave them in til day 10 to be sure. the rest have a dark shadow at the yolk, and a nice dark eye with some veining. the BCMs are of course challenging to see through, but I'm fairly confident they're developing!!

I also added 10 more eggs to the incubator, bringing me up to 46 in the hand turning bator

about 80 total

 

[Deb B]

Woke up this morning to a pip!

 

[mollybuck]

cute little turkeys!

I cannot get over how SMALL they are in the first pic!!!
well you are definitely much more qualified than myself! I am no expert , I just raised cornishX the one time.. my husband and I looked up the "how to " online and we did restrict their feed, but not as much as you do. that sounds very different. I think it was 12hrs at first when they were little, then 8, then 6 then 4 hrs of feed. maybe we were just giving them too much feed then? we were literally having to clean the pen out daily. luckily we did not have any leg issues, but 1 did keel over on processing day and I think it must have been heart attack...

this PDF describes different classifications of chickens as meat based on age, broilers, fryers, roasters, etc using heritage chickens as the traditional farmer did. this is sort of the direction we want to go in. basically, having some pure breeds in the egglaying flock who are allowed to mix and create mongrels which are dual purpose (eg marans x wyandotte) and should hopefully have a decent amount of meat when we process around 16 weeks. we also grow out & process the excess males of the purebreeds (wyandottes, marans) for the table

I know they are so cute! I would love turkeys!!

as for restricting the feed..i only do it like that because thats what we always did... actually I shouldnt say always.. we use to feed them too much and by the time they were 4 weeks.. we would find a couple who just died.. for no appearant reason. Then dad realized the strain on the legs and must have been having on the inside. but we use to raise 100 at a time. i have 14. one is in a tote by itself since it couldnt stand very well after about 2 weeks... so we are babying it for now. I also process my extra males. We did 6 marans and 2 buff Os last fall. I would have to think tho, that they were pretty scrawny even at 5 months...but it gets cold here early and I didnt want to wait and have to be doing it outside in the snow! that is most of the reason I got the X this year, because it will be just a few weeks and we can clean up the mess... and use their pen for growing out the new babies!!

 

[Kelsykin]

We have 9 Turkeys out and 1 duck out. More pips in both the turkey and duck eggs. We have 1/3 of the turkeys and ducks hatched. I can see two or three more ducks looking to hatch out today.

 

[COsteveo]

Tested the incubator last night with another calibrated thermometer and it has indeed been running 5 degrees low the last few days. The only thing I can think of is that the thermostat is out of calibration; it still kicks on and off at the right temps, but must not be reading those temps correctly anymore. It was working perfectly when I set the eggs.

While working through this I candled two quail eggs and saw movement in both, so I still have hope that they will hatch a few days late. These guys have a lot going against them, first being shipped by plane from sea level to 5400', and now being hit with low temps. This is my first try so if I could just get 6 or 7 birds from the remaining 20 eggs I could get a new thermostat and then start hatching out my own eggs.

 

[BirdyGirl7198]

I have 3 ducklings! Two of them hatched at the exact same time (it was awesome) at 4am this morning... Yes I was awake
The other one hatched 10 minutes before I had to leave for school! Talk about timing. I have two more zipping, about 6 more pipped, and the rest are wiggling around. My Canada goose eggs are now starting to hatch! I'm so egg-cited

 

[Kelsykin]

Updated counts

Hatched
10 turkeys
2 ducks

External Pipped Eggs
2 Turkey
5 Duck

Nothing yet
9 Turkey
2 duck

Which equals 30 eggs which is what I had at lockdown.

 

[Cynthia12]

Wow! Congratulations to all of the new babies...and all of the action in eggs! I also have pips. All three of my little eggs in lock down have pips. These are from my winning a contest in the Easter Hatch A Long. I sooo hope they all three hatch. This poor gal was devastated to say the least when I sent her those photos of scrambled eggs. I washed off gently, and then wiped gently..6 eggs, but they were still a bit sticky. Three didn't even start. But three did. I can't believe I got three to this point. They must be strong babies!
Two are marked silkie, and one looks to be a marans..pretty egg.

 

[Farmer Viola]

Wow! Congratulations to all of the new babies...and all of the action in eggs! I also have pips. All three of my little eggs in lock down have pips. These are from my winning a contest in the Easter Hatch A Long. I sooo hope they all three hatch. This poor gal was devastated to say the least when I sent her those photos of scrambled eggs. I washed off gently, and then wiped gently..6 eggs, but they were still a bit sticky. Three didn't even start. But three did. I can't believe I got three to this point. They must be strong babies!
Two are marked silkie, and one looks to be a marans..pretty egg.

yeah!

you can do it chickies!

I woke up this morning and my thermometer read 102 in my forced air... omg! my laser thermometer on the eggs read 104! AHHH I am freaking out.. just candled them and they were all alive.. don't understand the spike.. hoping they are all ok and that it wasn't too long..

my other incubator the still air, has some cold spots now since I added 10 new eggs. In hindsight I wish I had warmed the new eggs up closer to 95ish before adding them but that is easier said than done...