~*Third Annual Cinco de Mayo Turkey Hatch-Athon*~ all poultry welcome!

[lsmith]

Two  turkey eggs with external pip!!!!     THese are bit early as they were set the 7th.  Need to look for more  with pips . . . . .

Woohoo!!! I'm so jelly. I saw some sweet grass babies at the feed store and really wanted one but didn't do it.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: LOL--- the temptations!!!!!

 

[mlm Mike]

Quote: Now I'm jealous, your feed store sells sweet grass poults! Ours sells both kind of turkeys, BBB and BBW.

 

[HEChicken]

I have a sign up on a very busy road and we hardly sell any eggs at all . . .

That is interesting to know. We live on a rural road so no point putting a sign out, but on the way to town on the busy road there is a sign indicating eggs for sale and I always figure that if my customers have to drive past there to get to me…..they may decide to save themselves some time and gas. Now I'm wondering how many customers their sign actually brings in.

I have an ad on Craigslist that I renew from time to time when the eggs build up too high. I have a few repeat customers from that. I am fortunate that I frequently visit the town next to me - 20 minutes away - as well, so I tagged that town name in my ad and when people from there contact me, I offer to deliver next time I am there. That saves them a trip, and they know to just text me and ask when I'll next be coming their way and place their order. I'm not selling as many as I'd like at THIS time of year, but later in the year when production slows, I'll have orders for more eggs than I can deliver. I also give away to friends and family.

 

[jbenson]

the weirdest part is, I haven't even posted the chicks for sale. I've been getting orders for chicks through my hatching egg post. I may raise my price to $5 just to see what the market is with the next hatch. Honestly my business plan was set for starting next year. I haven't even gotten my breeding pens set up. Hence the mutts. Just planned on selling extras that weren't going into my laying flock. The mutts were supposed to be a layer project for me since both groups of hens lay like crazy. I have 8 hens and sometimes get 10-12 eggs a day. And no in natural lighting to produce more.

I have generally sold my mutts as $3-4 each from day old. Once they feather enough to figure out who is frizzle, I mark frizzles to $8-10. I sell pures between $5-7. But, I'm not NPIP yet, so I don't think I could get much more. I sell only straight run until I can sex by comb or hackle feather, then I mark the pullets to $8-10 and the roos at whatever moves them out of my pen (I can't feed that many mouths forever). Usually the roos go for $1-2 a piece in large groups to local Asian families (I know they eat them and I'm totally okay with that because it's what would happen if they stayed here too, I just don't care to do that anymore).

 

[lsmith]

Now I'm jealous, your feed store sells sweet grass poults! Ours sells both kind of turkeys, BBB and BBW. 

They must have been SG. Arielle described them as being very light yellow and these looked just like my gold sex link but it had the longer neck, shorter feather and the bump on the beak. They also had what I think are palms of some kind. They have dark and light striping on them.

ETA- I'm wrong. I checked porters website and they have sweet grass and Narraganset. I'll have to go get pics of them. I know they're locally hatched but I'm not sure how "pure" bred they are.

 

[lsmith]

I bought a hygrometer today. My hatch failed, I think, because it was only 40% humidity in my incubator. It's now up to 60% and my chicken eggs are on day 23. I don't think they will hatch but the duck egg in there looks like the air cell is pretty large. Since it should hatch this week, I've got to find a way to get that humidity up to 65%. I have the reservoir filled, 2 butter tubs filled and sponges in them, then I added 2 whole sponges cut into strips and soaked in hot water to the floor of the incubator. Grrr

 

[yinepu]

When you say dry hatch, do you mean without adding any humidity at all?

exactly.. I haven't added a drop of water to any of my bators for the past year.. (except to clean them.. lol).. BUT you HAVE to monitor air cells and make sure they are on track.. and then at hatch watch the first few to make sure the membranes are soft enough.. as each chick hatches the humidity will naturally climb

And for the record.. here in Texas my relative humidity is usually around 16% .. when it got as high as 23% relative humidity (outside and in the room since we have windows open most of the year) I noticed a bit of an issue with sticky babies.. so I dropped the humidity down (no added water at all) and they popped out without any issues..

so for this method to work you need to monitor your eggs AND the chicks at hatch.. then respond as needed with the water

Quote:

Quote:
See what I wrote above!

Quote:
not necessarily... like I said it depends on how the eggs and the chicks are doing with everything DRY (incubation AND hatch).. I hatch out hundreds of chicks, goslings, turkeys and ducklings a month (and right now parrots .. not to mention emu, peafowl and anything else I can get) and I have had better success with going totally dry during incubation AND hatch.. to the point where I am getting 100% hatches more often than not.. and the ones that aren't hatching are infertile or damaged (scrambled) eggs

Every home and incubator will require different things.. so I refuse to use a blanket statement like "you MUST add water at hatch".. since I and several others have proven that it is NOT needed in every case.. and for the people who have had issues with chicks not making it out of the shell because of stickiness or because the chicks were bloated.. it's just one more thing they can try before giving up on incubating altogether

Like all things.. people should be willing to keep an open mind and experiment when they can't get it right... and since they are risking the eggs anyway by using the "old methods" which everyone seems to parrot.. it's just one more thing they can try which may very well give them positive results!

lol.. and Texas (where I live) is far from humid .. we are once again in drought conditions (well.. we never really left them) and today for example our relative humidity is 12%.. and you better believe I am still hatching dry until the eggs and chicks tell me otherwise!

this is from National Weather service... the hygrometer (recently calibrated) in the incubator is reading a whopping 18%

Fair
90°F
32°C​

• Humidity​

  12%​
• Wind Speed​

  E 3 mph​
• Barometer​

  29.98 in (1014.8 mb)​
• Dewpoint​

  30°F (-1°C)​
• Visibility​

  7.00 mi​
• Heat Index​

  86°F (30°C)​

Last Update on 3 May 3:55 pm CDT

​

 

[Arielle]

Quote: I have tried CL and that doesn't generate traffic either. . . maybe I need to tag the small city near by . . . This is the time of year that I start freezing eggs and making more pickled eggs . . . made with Braggs , of course.

I bought a hygrometer today. My hatch failed, I think, because it was only 40% humidity in my incubator. It's now up to 60% and my chicken eggs are on day 23. I don't think they will hatch but the duck egg in there looks like the air cell is pretty large. Since it should hatch this week, I've got to find a way to get that humidity up to 65%. I have the reservoir filled, 2 butter tubs filled and sponges in them, then I added 2 whole sponges cut into strips and soaked in hot water to the floor of the incubator. Grrr

sorry they are not hatching-- what do the air cells look like?? $0% might be too high RH for your area during April; WHat was the temp runnin g at?? 23 is getting a bit late but not if the temp was running low.

Hope you have more eggs to trial.

Good job on the water tubs though-- that should get you some good RH numbers.

 

[JennaLynn122]

I have generally sold my mutts as $3-4 each from day old.  Once they feather enough to figure out who is frizzle, I mark frizzles to $8-10.  I sell pures between $5-7.  But, I'm not NPIP yet, so I don't think I could get much more.  I sell only straight run until I can sex by comb or hackle feather, then I mark the pullets to $8-10 and the roos at whatever moves them out of my pen (I can't feed that many mouths forever).  Usually the roos go for $1-2 a piece in large groups to local Asian families (I know they eat them and I'm totally okay with that because it's what would happen if they stayed here too, I just don't care to do that anymore).

normally I wouldn't sell sexed day olds but my last hatch of these ended up being feather sexable and I got 100% of them correct. On any pure or non feather or non auto sexing breeds I would only well straight run. And I use the method where I raise the price per week. $1 a week for the first 2 weeks after hatch then $2-3 a week up to about $20-$30 depending on breed and of course roosters then drop a bit in price when I'm sure of them.