That is what happened a few weeks ago while my husband was hay cutting. He didn't see mama turkey hunkered down in the grass, sitting on her nest. If he had, the nest would have been marked and he could have gone around that little section of ground. Instead, mama turkey stayed put, protecting her precious cargo and you can guess what happened.
I was at the house when the phone rang. All he said was to meet him in the field and bring a basket. It sounded urgent. I couldn't imagine what I was about to encounter. The two youngest and I quickly headed over to where he was, standing in the field over a little nest of eggs where mama turkey had met her demise.
In my haste to get out the door, I had forgotten the basket. We grabbed what we could find in the car...a floppy blue sunhat. The girls and I gathered up the eggs that were still in tact and put them carefully in the hat. We brought them home, started up the incubator and placed the 8 eggs inside.
I did some quick research to learn at what temperature they should be incubated and for how long. We had to guess at how far along the eggs were in development and from there we put the potential hatch date on the calendar.
And then we waited.
I had tried to candle the eggs when we first brought them home but since I had never incubated turkey eggs before I wasn't sure what to look for. I thought I saw movement in a couple of the eggs but couldn't be 100% sure. Quite honestly, I didn't think this would work, but what did we have to lose?
I hadn't really given the eggs much thought during the next week or so. They were just in the incubator, slowly rotating on the egg turner. Once in a while, I would check on the temperature and humidity just to make sure it was okay. And we went about our normal summer busy-ness.
Then on a whim, I decided to candle an egg again. Maybe I could tell if there was any change from the last time I candled. I took the closest egg and headed towards the bathroom (the darkest room). On my way, I rubbed my hand over the egg and noticed a little pip in the shell! What! Could that be? I candled the egg. All I could see was a dark mass. I quick took the rest of the eggs off of the turner and set them in the bottom of the incubator. 5 of those 8 eggs began to move on their own! We actually had movement inside those eggs! Amazing!
The first two chicks that tried to get out of their shells didn't make it. I was pretty sad because I heard and saw the one making good progress, but then I had to leave. We had read that you shouldn't help them out, no matter what! So I left it alone. When we returned a few hours later I had expected to see a turkey chick but the chick was still in the shell and no longer moving. But, alas, another egg had a pip! I was determined not to lose this one. I wound up helping the chick hatch out of the shell.
The next day I checked the rest of the eggs. Two of the remaining 5 had pips (and I could hear peeping!) but the other three were empty. So I got to work helping out those last two chicks.
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| Helping one of the last two chicks out of their shell (Photo courtesy of Kaitlyn) |
Luckily, we were successful in getting three of the eight eggs to hatch. Now I am learning how to take care of poults.
Sometimes accidents happen. It is up to us to determine the outcome. Although mama turkey lost her life protecting her brood, we did our best to finish the job.
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| The girls have named them Rochester, Benny and Dennis. |
