Well, we candled the turkey eggs to see how many of them are going to hatch. When you shine a really bright light through the egg in a dark room, you can see inside it. If you see a “spider” in the egg, it means that is developing into a chick and will probably hatch. If all you see is a dark, round mass, the egg is a dud and won’t hatch. The first time, dad candled the eggs and obviously did something wrong because we didn’t see a “spider” or a dark round, mass. We did see some really cool gelitine stuff floating around inside the egg. Mom tried candling again a couple days later, she did the exact same thing we did and got much better results. We added in the chicken eggs the same day we candled the turkey eggs.
Of course, being me I couldn’t resist naming a couple eggs. Egg number 1 is named Shelly, egg number 2 is named Eggbert and egg number 3 is named Yolko! I am nuts. 😀 Too bad they’re going to get eaten. 🙁 Which is another thing I meant to mention, after they hatch, the turkeys won’t be ready to butcher until Christmas. My Aunt Stephanie has already put in a request for one. No idea when we can butcher chickens.
We still have to turn the eggs every day to make sure they’re evenly warmed and fill up the water trough to put moisture in the air. On Day 24 we get to stop turning the eggs and on day 28 they’ll hatch…
-K@tie
P.S. I counted all the Es in this post and there are 150. I take pleasure in the strangest things. 😀
We’re facing the qurandy at the moment. None of ours are what one would call old although our 2yo pekin bantams have declared very loudly that they are NOT going to lay eggs for us any more. Haven;t seen a bloody chook egg in months now! We have 20 birds including 3 ducks (2 drakes but they are getting along ok so not sure what will happen as Hubby says he can’t cull a duck), 3 pekin bantams, one of whom is a nasty piece of work, 3 silkies whom have been bought for being broodies next spring and the rest are silver-grey dorkings 4 hens and the rest rosters including our gentlemanly Blackboy (he was a black chick when little and his colouring is a little different) whom I wish to keep for breeding as long as he doesn’t crow too much. There’s also 1 lorp roo who will meet his maker soon as he’s shown to be a bit on the I don’t like you people side. But the pekins were bought as egg laying pets. If they don’t up their game though I don’t know what we will do. Not exactly meat birds and at the moment less than useless except for laughing at their fluffy butts but not sure my husband could do it or that my kids would ever forgive me so As for sick hens, noisy roosters (if you’re going to crow every 30 secs on the 30 sec mark from 5am until 8am then you’re going to die) or injured birds then yes, if they can’t be healed they get the chop too.