Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[jvls1942]

No I did not find any laying hens close to my area..

yes , you can brood turkeys with chicks.. HOWEVER, you cannot put the turkey poults in where older chickens have been anytime before..

I would also be hesitant to brood turkeys with chicks that were hatched by a chicken..
I would do it with incubated chicks only..

I have 3 GQF cabinet incubators.. I don't know where you are getting your information about faulty motors from, (I can guess< though) .. One of my incubators is over 25 years old and was used a lot .. I have had it for about 5 years and if you care to look back in these posts, you will see that I run it/them continuously from March to October..

once you get them set up, you hardly ever have to touch the settings again,,

a Dickie is a spittin' image of a sportsman GQF..

IMHO I have no use for any home made incubator that depends on light bulbs for heat and/or a thermostat that is not designed for an incubator ..ie water heater thermostats..

I am not saying not to make a small experimental incubator to hatch a few eggs..

but if you are going to be hatching some expensive eggs or a lot of eggs, do it right,,

do not try it and fail,, and then don't let me hear you cry about it.. no sympathy here..

also IMHO,, there is not a thing wrong with the GQF Hova Bator nor the Little Giant ..
all failures are strictly human failures in not setting them up correctly,, doing it the factory way is not the correct way,,

I have done many tutorials here and on other threads and people that followed the directions had super results..

BTW I will take any of these bators off your hands if you want to just toss them,,

.........jiminwisc............

I just read through this,, didn't see where I made any negative comments about the GQF

 

[jvls1942]

Good morning all..we got a nice sunny day started let's hope it keeps going..him thanks for the info on the turkeys...I'm getting turkeys and chicks on the same day from the same place..so I'm thinking I should be ok..

you should be OK if the chicks were hatched in an incubator and had no contact with adult chickens,
turkeys have a weak immune system until they are about 13 weeks old..

I always kept mine separated from the chickens until about then,
I kept them in turkey porches.. a pen just for turkeys that is 2 feet off the ground.. 4 x 10 feet x 3 feet high,, this handles a dozen turkeys for 13 weeks.. then I open the door and let them go free range..

 

[jvls1942]

,
these are the two turkey porches end to end..
there are turkeys in the left one, and guineas in the right one.
the sections on either end are doors that slide open toward the center,
there are 3 roosts at the center of the pens..

 

[birdman55]

im not trying to argue i just said i have heard some negative things about them....and posted the pm message from a different person about their own review...and just wanted some reassurance that what i was looking at getting wasnt going to be a problem...who knows maybe this person just got a bad unit...as there are lemons in everything....cant expect everything to be perfect thats why they make warranties...right...hope this clears up this subject...dont have time to argue as it is counterproductive...was just asking for thoughts...and more then enough people have commented about there thoughts...which the outcome was more good then bad. so thank you everyone

 

[BayBay Peepers]

I like the new avatar Jim.

 

[jvls1942]

I like the new avatar Jim.

that is my all time favorite picture of Frankie ,,
it is like she is saying, I'm on break, my time,, you can just wait ..

 

[birdman55]

,
these are the two turkey porches end to end..
there are turkeys in the left one, and guineas in the right one.
the sections on either end are doors that slide open toward the center,
there are 3 roosts at the center of the pens..

like the turkey porches....good idea....i may have to build some of them

 

[jvls1942]

Quote: I like them too,, but I would scale them down to 4 ft x 8 ft. they are quite heavy, and it is difficult to catch birds in them because they run to the opposite end.. you could reach them with a net if the distance was shorter,, now it takes 2 people to catch them,,

I have step by step pictures while I was building these..

the doors roll on overhead door rollers and track,, never plug up or freeze ..

I move these around with my tractor bucket and some special 4x4 forks that I made ..

 

[irishrovr]

A little something from the Chicken Chick...

 

[jvls1942]

A little something from the Chicken Chick...

a chicken on crack ?