Uh oh newbie mistake with turkey and chicken eggs put in incubator on same date! Help?

[LovesteadMama]

Ok so, as the thread title states, I put my turkey eggs in on the same day as my chicken eggs so now I have 1 incubator and 2 hatch dates. I have a turkey hen who is broody right now but she JUST started laying, laid about 8 eggs and went broody almost immediately. She's a newb and I've found several crushed eggs (chicken eggs) under her so she doesn't seem a good option unless it's my only option. There are other complications with using her to hatch them but I digress. What can I do to ensure I can get a healthy hatch from both the turkeys and the chickens in the same incubator? I'm not even sure how the "lockdown" thing works. I assume it means that I would simply not open the incubator after day 18 until all had hatched but I am reading something about humidity levels so I suppose I need to research more on that. There is an egg turner in my incubator. Do I take it out? Leave it? How do I make this work so I don't have a loss of the turkey eggs when hatching the chickens?

Picture from last week for the fun of it.

Thanks for your help! This community is amazing!

 

[Jack3291]

First, after some hatch you are able to take them out, just make sure to add more water. Second, I think it is best to temporarily move the turkey eggs outside with the broody hen during the time when the chicken eggs are estimated to hatch.

 

[LovesteadMama]

First, after some hatch you are able to take them out, just make sure to add more water. Second, I think it is best to temporarily move the turkey eggs outside with the broody hen during the time when the chicken eggs are estimated to hatch.

Hmmm... So, around 18 days (when lockdown happens?) I should remove the turkey eggs and put with the broody hen? Until all the chicken eggs are done hatching? Then I can put the turkey eggs back to finish? Every time I go out there to check on the hen, she has crushed eggs under her so it seems pretty risky but she is sitting. the turkey eggs are more imperative to me than the chicken eggs so I'm reluctant to move them out at all but I have substantially more chicken eggs incubating.

 

[Tonyroo]

Have you considered making a temporary diy incubator? That would make more sense. You have time to make it if you just started the eggs. There's articles on here to make it with most common materials.

Read up on some articles about incubating eggs and what they require for chickens and turkeys.

 

[LovesteadMama]

Have you considered making a temporary diy incubator? That would make more sense. You have time to make it if you just started the eggs. There's articles on here to make it with most common materials.

Read up on some articles about incubating eggs and what they require for chickens and turkeys.

What's required for that? I have seen videos of folks making them but I don't have the resources to acquire the heating/humidity control unless it's very inexpensive. The chicken eggs have 7 days left before hatch, 4 days til lockdown so time is crunched.

 

[LovesteadMama]

Hey, BYC fam, can someone enlighten me? What's the risk of leaving the turkey eggs in while the chicken eggs go on lockdown. Why is it an issue? Is it a humidity thing? Thanks for educating me!

 

[Yucky_ducky_kentucky]

It's fine, I've done that before as a newbie. Just let them all go into incubation lockdown and when the chickens are all hatched, put the turkeys back into rotation mode. It's ok if the eggs aren't turned for a couple of days. I was freaked out about that once but my eggs that weren't turned during lockdown hatch just fine a couple weeks later

 

[Yucky_ducky_kentucky]

Hey, BYC fam, can someone enlighten me? What's the risk of leaving the turkey eggs in while the chicken eggs go on lockdown. Why is it an issue? Is it a humidity thing? Thanks for educating me!

It's because eggs need to be rotated a couple times everyday and lockdown is when you stop turning them

 

[Mellowmalt]

Lovestead please reseach the humidity during lockdown. It should be over 60% to assist the eggs hatching.
The rest of the time the humidity is not as important and can fluctuate quite a bit - to me it just need to be high enough that the eggs don't lose too much moisture or too little.
Turning is more important at the start of incubation so I agree with yuckyducky that not turnig the turkey eggs and keeping them at a higher humidity for 3 days at this stage should be fine.

After all the chicken eggs have hatched you turn on the egg turner again or put it back in if you removed it and keep the humidity low like 30-40% for another 3 days till you put the turkey eggs on lockdown and need to raise humidity to over 60% for them to hatch.