Turkey hen not sitting...

[ali12gap]

I am in a little bit of a pickle and was wondering if I could garner some advice. I have 2 turkey hens. One is sitting on her nest faithfully for 5 days now. The other has 8 eggs buried and is showing no interest in sitting yet. I read that if they sit and hatch their chicks together the chicks have a better chance for survival. The twist is I also have a broody hen who is faithfully sitting on 1 turkey egg by accident. So my question is should I put the other 8 eggs under the hen, split them up between the broody turkey and hen, or continue to wait and see if the other turkey comes around and let nature take it's course??

 

[feedman77]

The non broody hen will come around.

I have several varieties of heritage hens and thry all seem to go broody.

Each hen will have her own number of eggs she wants in a clutch. Some hens only takes 1 or 2 eggs and their ready to set. Others will take up to 20 eggs before they are ready.

The later in the laying season it gets usually the less eggs it takes for them to go broody.

Avg. Nest is 8-14 eggs. Iwould give her a few days even if she is a week or so off of yhe other hen in hatching her poults will be fine.

Good luck

 

[bobbi-j]

Obviously the other turkey hen is not broody. If it were my flock, I would not put the eggs under the other turkey or the chicken, as you would have a staggered hatch. (Not sure a chicken can cover 8 turkey eggs well anyway) If you really want to hatch out those other eggs, you might want to consider looking into getting an incubator.