My turkey hens have started laying! I think I've gotten about 6 eggs now. Yesterday they both laid. These are going in the incubator either tomorrow or the next day. I need to empty all the unhatched eggs out and clean them out.
I've had a BAD hatch. I've gotten 3 chicks from the 2 full incubators! I don't know why. The 3 have clean legs and 2 are black with greenish legs. The yellow has pink legs but a muffy type face. All 3 eggs were brown. All 3 eggs were marked as being from the outdoor pen. That pen had the Americaunas and the black sex-links as far as hens. The roos where mostly mixed breed and a few were cochins. Two of the mixed breed were white with some orange and dark brown feathers. I suspect the 2 black chicks are from the sex-links and the yellow from a white roo.
None being Cochin make me wonder if there was a fertility problem with the Cochins. Another thought is maybe the eggs got too cold outside before I got them collected. Or maybe the house was too cold at times for the storage before they were put in the incubator. The incubators were both running very steady and holding their temps very well. I never missed turning. All 3 chicks hatched later than the 21 days.
Now to clean the incubators out and get them loaded again. I'll be putting the turkey eggs in one of them! I'm debating the best way to do it. Do I put them all in one and no chicken eggs and then add more turkey eggs weekly as I collect and save them? Or do I load one and then when I have enough load the other? My thought is if I load one with chicken eggs and put the turkey eggs in the other and add more turkey eggs weekly, I can hatch the turkey eggs in the other incubator after that one finishes it's hatch of chicken eggs. Chicken eggs hatch in 21 days and turkeys in 28. That would allow me to keep adding turkey eggs weekly and might be the they way to hatch more of them.
I sure hope the turkey eggs are fertile and hatchable!
I would also still like to trade someone some of my Royal Palm eggs for some Bourbon Red eggs.
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Sorry your hatch didn't work out. DH just last night returned the brooder box and light we borrowed from our show-chicken-raising-friend, er, 2 years ago. Yikes. My hatches have been disappointing, too, but more because of the heavily male outcome.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have a Americauna (Easter egger) cross roo right now. His daddy is a Buff Orpington/Rhode Island Red. He's white with pink legs (like daddy), but his feathering contains some orange splotches here and there and a couple of greens in his tail (from dad). Were it not for knowing which girl his momma was, I'd never guess he was 1/2 Easter egger.
Bummer! I do have 3 Bantams and one is mottled! I so hope these 3 all make it to adulthood and beyond!
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