Please help incubating turkey eggs

[Greenerhatchery]

Please help, is there a trick to incubating turkey eggs?
Because more than 85% die when I place them in lockdown. The humidity is 80%-81% and the temperature is 36.8 celsius when they go to lockdown. I candle them before going into lockdown and all chicks are alive. I've placed them stanning up and laying down, ive put them in lockdown on 24 days and when they start pipping. Should the temperature stay constant, should the eggs lay down the first 24 days or can they stand up? Please help I dont want to lose more chicks.

 

[R2elk]

Please help, is there a trick to incubating turkey eggs?
Because more than 85% die when I place them in lockdown. The humidity is 80%-81% and the temperature is 36.8 celsius when they go to lockdown. I candle them before going into lockdown and all chicks are alive. I've placed them standing up and laying down, ive put them in lockdown on 24 days and when they start pipping. Should the temperature stay constant, should the eggs lay down the first 24 days or can they stand up? Please help I don't want to lose more chicks.

It is necessary to know the whole incubation process to try to figure out your problem. If you are incubating at too high of humidity during the initial phase, the air space will not increase sufficiently for the proper size at lockdown which will cause the poults to be too large and not have sufficient air reserve to hatch. They will also be too large to properly maneuver inside the shell to be able to zip. How you are getting the lockdown humidity to 80% may also be part of the problem. If you are closing the incubator vents to get the humidity up, you will suffocate the poults.

Common Incubation Problems

I hatch my turkey eggs at 30% to 35% humidity and 99.5°F (37.5°C) for days 0 through 25 in a forced air cabinet incubator with the turner on. On day 25 I candle and put the eggs into lockdown in a forced air cabinet hatcher laying on their sides. There is no turner. I leave the temperature set at 99.5°F although there is nothing wrong with reducing the temperature by 1°F. I have not found that it makes enough difference to matter if the temperature is reduced or not. I set the humidity to try to get 65% to 70%. I believe that 80% humidity is too high for my conditions.

I have had poults hatch in the incubator at 30% humidity without any problems but I would not recommend that low of a humidity for lockdown.

 

[Greenerhatchery]

Thank you very much R2elk. Just want to make sure, do you turn the eggs from day 0 to 25? And do you place them laying down?

 

[R2elk]

Thank you very much R2elk. Just want to make sure, do you turn the eggs from day 0 to 25? And do you place them laying down?

The eggs are turned from day 0 through day 25. The auto turner in my cabinet incubator turns the eggs once every 3 hours. The newer models turn them once every hour. They are placed big end up in the turner for days 0 through 25 and laid on their side when moved from the incubator to the hatcher. I have had eggs hatch while sitting big end up and have not seen that it makes any significant difference in using either position for the final hatching position.

 

[Greenerhatchery]

Thank you very much,