young hen has just started to lay, when can I start hatching eggs?

If you took all the eggs from your turkey hens, what happens when they go broody? Do you give them any poults or just wait for them to get over it?
I don't have that problem. I collect the eggs when they first start laying for about 2 weeks. Those eggs get put in the incubator. After that I let them build their clutches and go broody.

When they hatch, I steal the poults and move them to the brooder. I do this for several reasons. It is far easier to show poults and collect them for sale from the brooder than from under a turkey hen. The other reason is that there are just too many bad things that can happen to newly hatched poults in the general population.

The hens don't all go broody at the same time. Any poults remaining after 2 weeks in the brooder get moved to the grow out pen. Usually I have a hen hatching poults at the time I am moving poults to the grow out pen. I give that hen the opportunity to adopt the 2 week old poults by letting her in the grow out pen with them.

If she accepts the poults, she will have them in the grow out pen for another two weeks at which time I will let her take them out into the general population.

The hens that I took the poults from usually go back to laying pretty soon and then is when the constant search for nests starts as they try to hide them really well.

If I have too, I will take all of a hen's eggs away when she goes broody late in the season and eventually she will get over it.
 

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