Turkeys For 2013

[kuntrygirl]

I candle as early as day three. Not all will have development by then though, and it'll only be a tiny spot with a vein or two. I hold it pointy end down, using my pinky, ring, middle finger and palm to hold the egg, then index and thumb on the top of the egg and around the flashlight.

Perfect explanation! I can picture that.

I will try that this weekend with the turkey eggs that are in the incubator now.

 

[Celie]

On the scale, I think I had to bid on mine and I won the bid at $9.01. But like you said, it was a steal. I couldn't pass that up at all.


Celie, when you candle, are you In a dark room, like pitch black dark room at night? Where do you place the flashlight? Do you put the flashlight under the egg and look at the egg from the top?

Yes the room has to be pitch black dark for me, but them I am so old, I used to date Moses! I candle from the top if the eggs are in their trays in the incubator, Or anyway I can see anything if they are not. Like for double yolk eggs before putting eggs into the incubator!

 

[Arielle]

WHen I first started hatching I candled a lot!! Heck I didn't know what I was doing and I was trying to learn learn learn. At midnight, when the house was quiet, and the kids asleep and out of the way. I would candle. TUrkey eggs, the eggs from my BR, are easy to see thru. A mostly white egg with light tan speckles. I turn the egg all directions, but alway put the air cell end to the light and twist the egg to determine size of air cell. TO me this was th most important: that the air cell develop in a timely manner. Sooo, development of the chick is almost secondary, I will k now when the egg blocks all the light at day 18 for a chicken or day 25 for a turkey.

When I hatch marans I cannot see dev at all because of the extremely dark egg. I can only watch the air celldev, and that can be a feat in itself. I would rather give marans eggs to a broodie. IF only she could be on my schedule and not her own. lol

 

[Celie]

Arllene, That is all I can go by, most of the time, with my turkey eggs, too! I watch the egg sack and that the rest of the egg darkens, so it must be fertile and developing.

 

[Celie]

I had 4 poults hatch out this morning, so I weighed them. The eggs are definitely getting bigger. The few poults that I weighed earlier this month were 1.5 to 1.8 ounces. Today they weighed 1.7, 1.8, 1.8 and 1.9 ounces. The eggs I collected today were 2.8 ounces each, so I expect that next month the poults will be even bigger. Even though the ones hatched earlier were slightly smaller, they all were strong and healthy. I can't tell you how their weight gain is, because I have been selling them as soon as they have been hatching. So far about 9 to 10 dozen, I think, with 1 infertile and 2 that died in the shell. I guess that comes to around 97% hatch rate. I have also sold a few dozen eggs, so I do not have any figures on that.I want to remind everyone, if you buy hatching eggs, do not expect the same hatch rate with shipped eggs, only God knows how postal employees handle perishables, not to mention the equipment used to sort them! I will continue to report as many statics as possible and maybe others can let us know how their turkeys are doing as the season goes on. I have the smaller breeds like midget whites lay the largest eggs, maybe someone raising them can let us know?

 

[farmgirlshelley]

I have Midget whites and I love them. They are small and friendly for the most part. Tom Tom our head turkey likes to attack my 9 yo daughter... not sure what that is about. I just got my first turkey egg today. I brought it in the house because I am not sure what I am going to do with it. I want to hatch them but I am not sure how well the female will do raising them. We have 2 males and 1 female, we lost a female this week to some idiot driving way too fast down our road. I was sick with grief over it. We ordered 15 from McMurray and only 4 survived, and I can bring any chicken, duck or goose back from the brink of death but the turkeys were another story.
I would love to try BR, BS and RP turkeys but right now I am going to try to keep these ones alive and breed them first. Wish me luck, I am going to need it!!!
PS I don't have an incubator yet ... any suggestions for a cheap but good one?

 

[larry529]

only 4 survived.. UGH.. I would of asked are you raising to eat, but with 4 left, kinda limits ya.. hope you get some good luck on your side.. I want to raise some midgets and bourbons...

 

[setir052083]

We raise Bourbon Reds, and I can't wait for them to start laying! Eventually we would like to add a coupledom varieties. They are so friendly and we just love them!

 

[Celie]

We raise Bourbon Reds, and I can't wait for them to start laying! Eventually we would like to add a coupledom varieties. They are so friendly and we just love them!

dom ?

 

[farmgirlshelley]

we want to breed them