First Set of Turkey Eggs are Incubating!

Yesterday we placed our first set of heritage turkey eggs into the incubator! Hopefully most will be fertilized and hatch successfully. Only time will tell. Some of these eggs were laid up to a week ago and were left outside until we found them. They might be ok, depending partly on how wet they got outside.

We have 15 eggs incubating now. That's all our little Suro 20 incubator will take of the big eggs. This year we are upgrading to the Suro 50 incubator to more than double the amount we can hatch at once. That will also allow us to run two incubators, which is important because we learned that putting eggs in that hatch at different times is very difficult. When the first ones start hatching they interrupt the development of others and potentially spread germs that prevent hatching. Nature intends all eggs in a nest to hatch pretty much together.

Our process for incubating is simple. For the first 25 days we use 99.7 degrees F and 55% humidity.  At day 25 we turn the temp down to 98.5 and 70% humidity. The higher moisture helps soften the shells to hatch easier and also provides less of a shock for the young birds when they enter the world.

Last year we had really good results with this, at about 90% hatch ratio. That is, as long as we didn't wash the eggs and they didn't get wet through other means. Water and eggs is NOT a good thing! Water can dissolve nature's protective coating on the eggshell, and carry bacteria inside to attack the developing bird. Much better to just rub them clean with a dry sponge and let nature take it's course.