One and Only Butterball...

Well it looks like we've failed at incubating turkey hatching eggs.  We are sad to report that we had a terrible time trying to keep the incubator temperatures steady enough.  This time of year we have such large temperature swings between days, nights, and weather conditions outside and room temps inside that we just could not keep it steady enough.  At first it was swings of 2 degrees at 98-101.  Then we got several unseasonably warm days at 93 during the day and 60 at night and things got more difficult and stressful to keep in a healthy temperature zone.  It took constant checks every 30 mins and small adjustments each time to keep it in the zone.  It was exhausting, stressful and worrisome.

We candled the eggs last week and found about 16 that didn't develop much at all past the first few days.  So we tossed all those and only 8 remained and appeared to be developing.

Then yesterday was when I felt 99% sure we'd done them in for good.  We found the temp in the incubator to be clear up to 106 degrees!  After all day it had been a steady 99-100.2 which was perfect!  That 106 is killer hot.:(   I feel like a failure, because after those weeks of attending to it so carefully and then this...when we are just days away from the hatch date we let the temp spike too high?  What a let down for all of us.:(

We are still going to finish out the incubation period, until the 22nd of May, just in case there is a 1% chance one lived through the heat wave.  I'd be every so grateful to have a ray of sunshine in our apparent failure, but I will also be alright with this being a lesson learned I suppose.

So I guess Butterball will likely be an only turkey this year.  I hope next year to order some from a local feed store and have them keep them for a couple days to make sure they are good and strong and over their travel/shipment stress and try again.  We spent our turkey budget this year on the hatching eggs and since those didn't work out we have to wait until next year.

Things we learned~

*  We are far too busy this time of year to be babysitting an incubator.
*  Ordering turkeys in the mail isn't the best idea, unless we can order them from a fairly nearby hatchery.
*  Turkeys are pretty cool and we really would like to raise them next year.

Thanks for reading about our challenges with the turkeys.  That is what life is about, not everything can be a success.  Hopefully next year our turkey story will go more positively and we can include you along the
journey.

For now Butterball doesn't mind his broiler chicken buddies.

I think he likes being one-of-a-kind.