New member with a turkey hatchling problem!!

Date sort Score sort
jjhabgood

jjhabgood

Hatching
Dec 27, 2015
6
0
7
Paphos cyprus
HI i have just joined this site today, hoping for some much needed help.
i have managed to successfully introduce some turkeys onto my land, all brought form a local farm (I'm in Cyprus). After a while the female turkeys started to lay eggs, which i have successfully hatched in an incubator. The problem that i am coming up against is i am keeping them in the house as a little chilly outside for babies, under a heat lamp, i am giving them water with a vita punch, and chicken starting food as i can't get turkey starter. After a good week they seem to stop eating and drinking then die. So far out of 10 chicks 2 are still alive, and these are doing well, second batch there was 14 and after one week i am now down to 7. I have spent hours watching and hand feeding them at the beginning and taking good care of them but i am obviously doing something that they don't like. Its as if they are to comfortable and lazy that they give up.
My other issue is i have 50 eggs getting ready to hatch, starting in 5 days onwards, do i place some eggs under my female adult bird outside, or not?
i would appreciate any help with these issues
many thanks in advance
 
jjhabgood said:
HI i have just joined this site today, hoping for some much needed help.
i have managed to successfully introduce some turkeys onto my land, all brought form a local farm (I'm in Cyprus). After a while the female turkeys started to lay eggs, which i have successfully hatched in an incubator. The problem that i am coming up against is i am keeping them in the house as a little chilly outside for babies, under a heat lamp, i am giving them water with a vita punch, and chicken starting food as i can't get turkey starter. After a good week they seem to stop eating and drinking then die. So far out of 10 chicks 2 are still alive, and these are doing well, second batch there was 14 and after one week i am now down to 7. I have spent hours watching and hand feeding them at the beginning and taking good care of them but i am obviously doing something that they don't like. Its as if they are to comfortable and lazy that they give up.
My other issue is i have 50 eggs getting ready to hatch, starting in 5 days onwards, do i place some eggs under my female adult bird outside, or not?
i would appreciate any help with these issues
many thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Welcome to BYC! You should be fine with the eggs if you have enough space in your incubator for all of those eggs. The chicks will try to move to the other eggs since they contain heat. As for the dying I have two questions. What is the protein level of the feed? What is the temp under the heat lamp?
 
Hi thank you for your response
At the moment i can't give you the information about the feed as its in greek and also i have disposed of the bag. I do believe the man that i brought the chickens and turkeys from uses the same feed and he recommended it to me.I have hard boiled some eggs today and just given them the yoke for a little boost, i will check tomorrow with the supplier, As regards to the temp its currently running at 31c 88f they are kept in a plastic box with straw on the floor which i change and clean every day fresh clean water at room temp given twice a day. They all seem ok for now but this can change very quickly.
 
welcome-byc.gif


If you haven't already done so, I'd suggest posting over on the turkey forum to get some opinions on what may be happening:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/20/turkeys

Good luck to you. Thanks for joining us!
 
The temp to me seems like it wouldn't cause death. Hopefully the egg yolk will help give them a boost in protein. If you can try to find a game bird medicated starter feed. Most game bird feeds are at least 20% protein and starters are higher. I would try to give them a protein level of at least 20% for the first 8-10 weeks.
 
Last edited:
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. I'm a chicken person and don't know much about turkeys (never had any), but definitely post on our Turkey link that NorthFlChick left with you and take advantage of our turkey experts there. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Cheers.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom