This year is the first year I have turkeys of my own to hatch. We have a small flock of Red Bourbon turkeys and a small flock of Chocolate turkeys. After reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal Vegetable Miracle, I was on a mission to raise my own Red Bourbon turkeys. Red Bourbon’s are a heritage breed. This means that they can breed and hatch naturally. They are one of the faster growing heritage breed turkeys. This trait is of key importance because a heritage turkey takes much longer to grow to table weight than a hatchery turkey. Chocolate turkeys were a heritage breed once upon a time as well. Unfortunately, they have been crossed so much over the years they are likely no longer pure. I love the pair I started out with though and their growth rate is to be comparable to a Red Bourbon. They seemed like a natural fit to raise with our Bourbon’s.
Our turkeys started laying in December. This is odd since they are a seasonal layer and do not typically lay until spring. We fired up our incubators though and gave it a go! You don’t want to waste those turkey eggs! Our first hatch of 41 eggs was a 100% fail. Not a single one hatched. I had a few eggs in Kathy’s incubator as well and she was more successful with 1 poult hatching. I have learned a lot about turkeys so far this spring. The main take away for me so far, they are not for the weak of heart. Hatching turkeys is painful and many times heart breaking. When you have a good hatch it makes all the sadness worth it. When they survive the first few days, even better!
I have found that when hatching turkeys I have better luck hand turning the eggs twice a day. Dry hatching until lock down. My eggs hatch early. Every. Single. Time. Turkeys pip internally and die. A LOT. This was a major struggle at first for me. I now turn down the temp on my incubator a degree on day 25. Lock down and wait. It has helped so far. I am curious to see if turkeys are like chickens, in that next year once they are two, we will have a higher success rate. Fingers crossed!
I was signed up for 3 spring sales this year and because I have turkey eggs, this has been my main focus to hatch so far. Now that things are shutting down because of Covid, we will have to see how it plays out. I’m not too concerned at this point. Turkey’s will always sell.
