Thinking about hatching Turkey eggs.

[countryangel3182]

How different is it to hatch turkeys than chickens? I am still a beginner as far as hatching in an incubator.I am on my 2nd hatch of chickens and so far so good. my 1st hatch was a 50% hatch rate.

 

[Hannah hen]

One of the first things to remember is that it will take an additional 7 days before hatching, 28 days total. I have 9 Burbon red eggs in a LG unit with fan and turner going right now. They were set 3/16. It is not recomended to use the turner in the LG because it puts the eggs to close to the heat source, but my eggs are sitting right in the middle of the unit. When we candled at 7 days we did have some clears but the others were developing well. This is our first atempt at turkey hatching, so we have no claim at being experts.
What type of incubater are you using? How many eggs do you plan on setting?
Here is a pic of our setup. We added the chicken eggs one week after the turkeys.

 

[countryangel3182]

I am looking into some Heritage turkeys. I am borrowing an incubator. It is a Hova-Bator Model 1602W. All I know it is a still air with egg turner and it is really deep inside. Right now I am tring to hatch 48 mixed breed chicken in there right now. They are due to hatch on April 5th. The turkeys I am looking to buy is a tom and 2 hens that are laying fertile eggs right now and the owner has some eggs set aside right now also. So I am thinking of hatching as many as I can fit in the bator. LOL They just might be a good sell around Thanksgiving. I know at are local auction house they go for good money.

 

[SilkieChickenLover336]

i hatched turkey eggs once! i bought 1 turkey egg just for the heck of it because the farmers was going to throw it out so i bought it for $2 and he told me it porbably wasnt fertile but i didnt care. so i put it in the incubator with some RIR and i candled it and it was fertile!!!! later he hatched and when it was novemeber some guy saw him and said ill give you $250 for him!!!!!! i was like ok. and on thanksgiving the guy came to my house and said he was delicous and gave me some. but was he yummy!

 

[Hannah hen]

Quote:
They are easy to sell. Mine are all gone and haven't even hatched yet. I'm just hoping they all hatch. If they do well I might have to try another batch.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Other than they need 28 days instead of 21 for chickens I don't treat turkey eggs any different. Same temperature, same humidity. They are larger eggs though so they take up more space.

I've got 40 in the incubator right now and have 25 or 30 more in the refrigerator waiting their turn. The box is full just now.

 

[countryangel3182]

Ok here I go. I am picking up 2 toms,3 hens and 12 fertile eggs to put in the incubator. wish me luck with this little turkey adventure.

 

[gr8ful]

Last year was our first year to hatch anything; we hatched chickens and turkeys. Right now we have 12 Bourbon Red eggs in the incubator. I candled them on the 8th day and was very excited to see that they were all viable! We have a simple still air incubator and we turn the eggs by hand 5 times a day. At the recommendation of someone else (I think it was on this group), I keep the incubator dry until they are set - worked for us last year. I live in central Texas, so it is fairly humid here.

 

[countryangel3182]

I just put in 16 turkey eggs in the incubator. The man I bought them from had 16 for me not 12!

The 2 toms ans 3 hens are in there new coop getting settled in from the 1 1/2 hour trip home.

 

[countryangel3182]

the turkeys are so happy they laid me 2 eggs within hours of moving to there new home.