How To Hatch Turkey Eggs In a Home Incubator

Learn how to confidently manage hatching your own turkey eggs at home, and achieve high success rates even from your very first hatch. This article will walk you through every step, from egg to adorable poult.

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A couple of years ago, while saving turkey eggs to hatch for the first time, I happened to run into a local homesteading friend at the feed store. We chatted about our various homesteading projects, and he wished me well with those turkey eggs. "They're wicked hard to hatch, from what I hear."

In fact, my experience ended up thankfully being the opposite. That first batch of eggs went on to have a 100% hatch rate, and every little poult was healthy and robust.

With many successful hatches of turkey poults behind me now, I can say that this idea of turkey eggs being difficult to incubate is just not something I've found to hold up. In my experience, turkey eggs are easier, more resilient, and hatch more quickly from pip-to-poult, than any other poultry species except quail.

If you've been considering hatching out your own turkey poults, I would heartily encourage you to give it a go! This hatching guide is based on my own successful experience, and I hope you find it helpful.

How long does it take to hatch turkey eggs?

In general, the incubation period for turkey eggs is 28 days.

There can definitely be some variability to this. Midget breeds, for example, may hatch in fewer days. Even within a single breed, conditions can have a dramatic effect on the length of incubation. If the incubator is a little on the warm side, you may see hatching on day 27 (though I don't recommend cranking up the temperatures, as this can be linked to inferior poult health, and even deformities.) If your incubator is a little on the cool side, you might not have hatchlings until as late as day 30.

What is a good hatch rate for turkey eggs?

The biggest factor here comes down to fertility. Some of the larger turkey breeds can have a harder time naturally mating, and you may see decreased fertility in "large-breasted" breeds that are bred primary for meat production.

While breed does play a factor, there are things you can do to help keep your turkey's fertility rates as high as possible:

• Make sure your turkeys are receiving at LEAST 12-13 hours of light per day. If you're aiming to hatch especially early in the season, this may mean offering supplemental light in their coop.
• Feed an excellent, high-quality diet
• Allow them a peaceful, undisturbed run or yard, where they can successfully engage in breeding behavior without being interrupted. If you've ever witnessed this, you'll know what I mean. Unlike chickens, this is not a really fast "hop-on-hop-off" business. Thankfully, even just a few successful breeding encounters over the course of a season can be enough to ensure that most of a hen's eggs are fertilized.

In fertilized eggs, a hatch rate over 90% is not uncommon, and should definitely be considered an easily achievable goal. If your hatch rates are lower than this, even with eggs that are definitely fertile, a little troubleshooting can help you get a better result.

Gathering Turkey Eggs for Hatching

Gather turkey eggs frequently, if you're wanting to hatch them in an incubator. Some turkeys lay reliably at the same time of day (mine always have laid in the afternoon), while others can be less predictable. While you're collecting eggs for hatching, it's worth checking their nesting area every few hours if possible.

Turkeys have a strong instinct to hide their nests, so if you're pretty sure you should be seeing eggs but aren't, it's worth taking some time to observe your turkey hens closely. Are they sneaking off to the edge of the yard every day? They may be hiding their nest. They love to lay next to rocks or fallen branches, and if dry leaves are available for cover, they often tuck their eggs in when leaving the nest. Those spotted eggs can prove tricky to spot, but once you've found the nest, chances are your hen will return to the same spot each day.

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Should you wash turkey eggs for hatching?

Few aspects of artificial incubation invite more disagreement than the question of whether or not to wash eggs. Best hatch rates will generally be had with CLEAN, unwashed eggs. Because of this, it's worth taking extra measures to ensure your turkeys always have clean, abundant nesting materials. Thankfully, turkeys tend to be very fastidious, and in general, have some of the cleanest eggs of any species I work with.

Even with your best efforts, though, sometimes eggs from the nest just aren't clean. In this case, it's best to wash the dirty eggs under a steady stream of water that's at least 10 degrees warmer than the egg. You don't want to submerse the egg in dirty wash water, or use water that's colder than the egg, as this makes it more likely for bacteria to be pulled in through the porous shell.

While you'll see many photos on social media of absolutely filthy eggs being set to hatch (for some folks this actually seems to be a source of pride!), this has been proven again and again to offer inferior results.

Incubators set with dirty eggs, have a higher rate of bacterial contamination, and higher rates of exploding eggs, sick or weak turkeys, and turkeys with infected navels.

It is simply not worth jumping on this contemporary social media trend, no matter how "back to nature" it seems. Those sharing this advice often claim to be following the "old ways". However, there is nothing "old fashioned" about this, as anyone who's ever actually studied 1800's animal husbandry guides will readily tell you.

Storing turkey eggs for hatching

Store your hatching eggs for as few days as possible, but while you do, be sure to keep them in a cool, humid location. If you have a basement, that's almost always the perfect place. Aim for a temperature of 50-65 degrees.

Should you turn turkey eggs during storage?

Statistically, if you're storing your turkey eggs for less than seven days (ideally, that's a good goal), it really doesn't have much impact on hatch rates, whether turkey eggs are turned during storage or not.

However, if you think you might need to store them longer than this, do try to turn them at least daily, if not more, since this does improve hatch rates for eggs than need to be stored 7 days or longer.

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Choosing an Incubator

There are SO many tabletop incubators available now, it really can be hard to choose! Over the years, I've had the chance to trial many, many different brands and types of small home incubators, and I definitely have a few recommendations.

Still Air vs. Circulated Air

Still air incubators (those without a fan inside, for circulating the heat), as a rule are cheaper to buy than circulated air incubators. However, it's much easier to get a good hatch rate with a circulated air incubator. If you're considering a still air incubator because you can't afford a good circulated air one, I'd suggests looking at used incubators. I would HANDS-DOWN recommend a used incubator with a built-in fan, over any incubator that doesn't have one.

Digital vs. Manual heat

You'll see that there are two different styles of thermostat available these days, for tabletop incubators. One is digital...you press buttons, the target temperature appears on a digital display, and you're all set. The other type is manual. These usually involve a "wafer thermostat", or something similar, where you control the temperature by turning a knob or screw, to fine-tune the temperature.

What I personally prefer about the manual style is that they not only have tended (in my personal experience) to be more accurate and dependable, but they're much easier to repair yourself, than a digital incubator.

My old workhouse Hovabator has hatched hundreds and hundreds of chicks, poults, ducklings, and goslings over the last ten years. In that time, the old wafer-style thermostat has failed on me twice.

For the cost of a $17 wafer thermostat and a few minutes of repair work, I've had that Hovabator back in working order, almost without missing a beat. You just can't do that with a digital incubator. (At least I can't!)

My advice with incubators is to get the best you can afford, and to choose used over new if that means a higher quality incubator. ANY incubator by Hovabator, like the Genesis or 1602n is going to be a workhorse for you. Brinsea is expensive, but most of their incubators are really excellent, and are especially user-friendly. Anything by R-Com is also expensive, but guaranteed to be high quality and dependable.

Temperature for hatching turkey eggs in an incubator

Before you set your turkey eggs, make sure you have an accurate, dependable thermometer and hygrometer. You can pick one of these up at almost any farm store. Make absolutely sure the thermometer gives you good detail through the 85-110F degree range.

Some thermometers displayed as "incubator thermometers" are really not designed for this, and don't have the level of detail necessary if that temperature is at the bottom of their range. I've seen cooking thermometers displayed as "incubation supplies" and this is not what you want.

Maintaining a consistent, ideal temperature is the single most important thing you can do, to assure a successful hatch.

The ideal temperature for hatching turkey eggs is 99.5 F.

During the last week of incubation, watch that thermometer very closely. The turkeys are starting to generate their own warmth, and in small incubators, that can affect the temperature of the incubator. Check your temps multiple times per day, and adjust as necessary, to keep the temperature stable.

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Humidity for hatching turkey eggs

The general recommendation for hatching turkey eggs, is a humidity range of 40-45%. Here in Maine, with heritage breed eggs, I've had good results with a target humidity of 42%.

If you've had to wash your eggs, removing the protective coating in the process, you'll want to bump that up a tad. 45-47% would be a good target. This is because washing and removing that coating renders the eggs more permeable, facilitating a faster loss of internal humidity. To counter that, the higher incubator humidity becomes necessary. (It's still worth it to wash eggs if they're filthy, and make this small adjustment.)

Turning the eggs

Turkey eggs need to be turned regularly while incubating. If you're lucky enough to have an auto-turner with a tray that's big enough to safely handle turkey eggs, it's ok to plug this in and let it start turning the eggs as soon as you set them.

If you're going to be turning the eggs by hand, start by putting a mark on one side of each egg. This will let you keep track as you turn the eggs.

With manual turning, it works best to leave the eggs undisturbed for the first 24 hours. Then start turning the eggs at least 3-5 times each day. Turning less frequently does result in lower hatch rates, and less robust poults.

When you turn the eggs, turn them a full 180 degrees. As the eggs are laying on their side, this means if your mark was on top of the egg previously, it's now on the bottom, the part of the egg that's resting on the floor of the incubator.

Continue this turning until day 25, when you set the eggs on lockdown.

Should you cool turkey eggs?

If you've primarily worked with waterfowl eggs in the past, you may be used to cooling and misting the eggs every day. This isn't necessary for turkey eggs, and I don't find it beneficial. Like chicken or quail eggs, you can leave the incubator lid on, and plan to keep the temperature consistent for the entire length of incubation.

Candling turkey eggs

In this day of cell phones, candling eggs is so easy. That bight little built-in flashlight is so far superior to any expensive "egg candler" I've ever used. So chances are, you already have what you need for this.

Candling eggs is not just exciting, it's an important step in incubation since it gives you the opportunity to remove any eggs that weren't fertile in the first place, or that began to develop and for some reason have failed to continue.

Infertile eggs or "quitters" are one of the best ways for bacteria to proliferate in the incubator, and anyone who's ever had an explode will never forget the smell.

Candle your eggs in a dark room, by picking up each egg and shining a light through the wide end. Practice with moving the angle of the egg on the light, and you'll soon get the hang of how to get the best view of what's going on inside.

I recommend candling turkey eggs at least twice: on day 7, and again on day 24, before placing the incubator on lockdown.

Candling turkey eggs on day 7

You should see a beautiful network of veins, radiating out from a tiny heart in the center. It's really amazing to see. If the egg is clear, it's safe to toss this one, that means it wasn't fertile to start with. If you see a dark ring, but no network of veins, that's an egg that started to develop, but stopped for some reason.

That ring is called a blood ring, and those eggs should be tossed as well. If you have any doubt, it's ok to mark those questionable eggs, and check them again in two days. If they're still not looking like the others, they really should be tossed, so that you don't risk harboring bacteria that could affect the healthy eggs.

Candling turkey eggs on day 24

The eggs should be quite solidly dark, with a much larger air sac than you saw, when candling at day 7. You might see movement, or you might not--it's crowded in that egg! What you don't want to see is a "sloshy" appearance, with the contents slogging back and forth looking loose and muddy in there. This is an egg that quit somewhere along the way, and should be removed before lockdown.

Putting the incubator on lockdown

"Lockdown" is simply adjusting the heat and humidity settings to where they should be during hatch, making sure ALL air vents are fully open, and being sure to leave the lid on the incubator, so that the humidity level stays steady.

THIS is the hardest part of hatching turkey eggs...the waiting during hatch time! Thankfully, turkey eggs tend to hatch far more quickly than ducks or geese, and even more quickly than most chicken species I've worked with.

How long should it take a turkey egg to hatch?

Turkey poults can really march to the beat of their own drum when it comes to hatching. In general, I have found that most turkey poults fully hatch within 24 hours after that first pip. Sometimes, they hatch even more quickly than this, pipping and zipping all in 5 hours.

However, it's important to know that some turkey poults do take longer, and that taking 36 hours to hatch isn't totally abnormal...especially if temperatures in the incubator have fluctuated during incubation.

While this seems like a long time, and you may be temped to help, remind yourself that most turkey poults hatch successfully on their own (even if they pip on the small end), and that helping a poult to hatch almost always does more harm, than good.

How to know if a turkey poult really does need help hatching

This topic really merits an entire post of its own. I've written extensively about this with ducklings, and while turkey poults usually DO hatch more quickly than ducklings, the same warning signs apply. I recommend reading through this article if you're starting to worry about your poults, and think that perhaps you should assist.

Maybe you should. Sometimes it feels like there's no right answer. But hopefully this article will help you feel more informed, as you make the difficult choice of whether to help or wait.

What to do while your poults are hatching

This really could be a humorous category...we could use an entire post of ways to distract ourselves while trying to patiently not stay glued to the incubator. Here are some practical, turkey-related things you may want to do, if you haven't already:

• Set up the brooder
• Put a "hatch cam" on the incubator window and live-stream it. Take bets on how long each egg will take to hatch.
• Prepare a "maternity ward" if you're planning for a broody hen take over parenting duties
• Set up a backdrop/props for a newborn photo shoot
• Make sure you've got charged batteries and space on your camera's memory card
• Cancel your appointments for the next couple of days, because you'll be busy snuggling adorable turkey babies.

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When to move turkey poults to the brooder

You can move your new fluff balls to the brooder as soon as they're dry and fluffed out. If you have a few turkey eggs that haven't hatched, but several poults are already hatched, fluffy, and trompling about the incubator...it's ok to quickly go ahead and get those lively babies out of the incubator and settled in their brooder.

Opening the lid long enough to do this isn't going to hurt the remaining eggs. Don't let the death-and-destruction Facebook folks dissuade you. Some people live for drama, and in this case it's just not warranted.

Do keep an eye on the humidity and make sure it comes back up where it's supposed to be, but don't feel like you need to leave turkey poults in there hours after they're ready to be moved, just to avoid opening the incubator for a moment.

I hope this hatching guide has been helpful! If you still have questions, please do feel very welcome to leave those in the comments. I'm always glad to help if I can!

Happy hatching!

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