Video Results of our test hatch from our Narragansett turkeys

[jopheso]

We had an excellent hatch on our first try hatching the eggs from our girls here on the farm. 13 out of 16 eggs hatched healthy and the other developed just didnt hatch out.

One of the best things about this means that our big aggressive Tom turkey gets to go to freezer camp now YAY! Im gonna wait prolly 2 weeks to be sure these guys are moving along well, then he takes the long walk!!

 

[frizzlelove83]

what do you set your humidity at and what type of incubator do you use?

 

[jopheso]

I have the JN8-48 but it has lots of names on Amazon. Here is a video of it I kept the humidity above 50% closer to 60% as well as I could. Basically adding water daily and then during lock down I bumped to 68-72% and kept it in that area as much as possible.

 

[frizzlelove83]

ok thank you! ive been trying to incubate turkey eggs for the past 3 years but i think i might need to change my method since im not getting the results i want

 

[mandelyn]

Congrats! I'm on my first batch, hatching now! 1 out, 4 pipped, wobbles from the rest. We'll see what happens!

We're going to send our aggressive Bourbon Red tom to freezer camp too, as soon as I have a sweeter replacement. We have a mixed black Tom who isn't exactly sweet, but submissive enough that he doesn't feel compelled to flog us. But he's not a purebred anything, he was retained for food birds, being bigger than the Reds. Paired him with a dusty colored Red hen that was also larger than the pure Red hen. So we'll have bigger birds for the freezer, and pure stock to grow out.

Planning on tractors to grow them out in, we have about 1.5 acres worth of pasture. Needs to be reseeded, was eyeballing poultry seed blends online at Hancock Farm and Seed. Right now it looks to be most fescue with some clover, dandelions and other weeds, the grass is thin from lack of nutrients, aeration, and being allowed to grow to maturity over several years... creating bald spots.

We have this beautiful ribbon of thick/green grass where the runoff from the first chicken yard is going, so with time of having birds the grass should start coming in pretty good!

Edited to add... The hens are awesome. We plan on keeping the best 6 hens out of what hatches. Might look into purchasing a Tom to keep genetics diverse.

The best hen I have cries for me to bring her grass, she's so cute! When she sees me she starts calling, I call back, fetch her greens... then I'm faced with the Tom trying to get at me through the fence. I put a handful of grass in front of him and he's like "Ugh, fine, I'll eat it, but when I'm done, I'm still going to try to fight you!"

 

[jopheso]

Very similar antics from my Narragansett Tom. I have a midget white Tom also who isnt mean at all, but at this point Im not sure any of the women would have him since he has taken such a beating at the hands of the other tom. So I will pick 1 of these Narra chicks to replace mean tom and I may keep the midget white around for genetics if I can get him to mate. Genetics arent a huge deal for me since after this batch pretty much everything I hatch will go to freezer camp so there wont be much inbreeding regardless of how it all works out. We are also going to use a tractor I made one out of a cattle panel and some wood that is very light and easy to drag to fresh grass. It is currently housing our black copper marans but they will move to the big girl coop when the chicks are ready for the tractor.