Turkey Egg Production Calculator

Do turkeys lay eggs?

Yes, but far fewer than chickens and only during a defined seasonal window, roughly late winter through early summer.

How many is genuinely contested. Published figures for heritage hens span 20 to 150 eggs a year, and that is not a case of sources being careless — they are describing different management. The Livestock Conservancy, working from conservation breeding flocks, gives 40 to 50 eggs a year when eggs are pulled for artificial incubation and only 20 to 25 when hens are allowed to sit. Cackle Hatchery puts the average heritage hen near 100, with Bronze and Bourbon Red strains half again higher. Backyard Poultry says the best strains under management aimed at year-round laying reach 150 or more, and sets a working benchmark of at least 45 eggs in the 90 days from March to June for a young hen.

We use 50 eggs a year for a heritage hen. That is the top of the Livestock Conservancy’s 40 to 50, chosen because their figure assumes eggs are pulled for incubation, which is exactly the management this calculator assumes, making the two directly comparable. We take the top of their range rather than the middle because Backyard Poultry’s 45-eggs-in-90-days is a floor for a young hen at 50 percent production rather than an average, and because Bronze and Bourbon Red strains genuinely run higher.

This figure used to be 110. That tracked Cackle’s hatchery number, and hatchery figures are promotional by nature. We are happy to cite hatchery guidance where it agrees with extension or conservation sources, but here the best source disagreed with it by a factor of two, so we followed the Conservancy instead. If you keep a strong laying strain, light your birds, and manage for eggs rather than poults, you may well beat 50 — but you should not plan on it.

A note on where these figures come from generally. We built this calculator because backyard turkey-egg economics are poorly documented online and usually borrowed from chicken numbers that do not transfer. All three constants assume daily egg collection and hens broken off the nest rather than allowed to set. If your birds set their own clutches, halve the output. If your flock performs differently, the contact page is at the top of the site.

Broad-Breasted Whites: read that number carefully

The calculator will give you 110 eggs a year for a Broad-Breasted White, which is more than it gives for a heritage hen. That is not a mistake, but it is easy to misread, so here is precisely what it describes.

It is a commercial breeder-flock figure. Broad-breasted hens do produce 100 to 120 eggs, over a 26 to 28 week laying cycle, in an industrial breeder operation: moved into a laying house and photostimulated at 29 weeks under a minimum of 14 hours of light, then artificially inseminated weekly to hold fertility above 95 percent. Insemination is not an optimisation there — it is a requirement. Decades of selection for breast width mean broad-breasted birds cannot reliably mate naturally, and commercial breeding depends on AI entirely.

A backyard meat bird never gets near it. The same bird is processed at 14 to 18 weeks. Our own Turkey Feed Cost Calculator is built around a 20-week grow-out. Laying starts around 7 months, so a bird raised the ordinary way is slaughtered months before it would lay its first egg. To get eggs from one you would have to keep it roughly twice as long as intended, and that carries real costs: these birds have limited mobility and struggle to walk at weight, are prone to leg and joint damage, heart disease and respiratory problems, and generally live under two years even when spared slaughter. The Turkey Housing Size Calculator covers the mobility side, including why they cannot use a normal roost.

So the honest summary: if you are running a breeder flock with lighting and AI, 110 is a reasonable planning figure. If you have a broad-breasted bird in the backyard and are wondering what it might lay, the realistic answer is closer to nothing, because you will have processed it first. If eggs are what you want, keep heritage birds.

Turkey eggs per year by breed

These are the per-hen figures the calculator works from. Each one is a full-season total, not a year-round rate, because turkey hens lay in a spring-to-early-summer window rather than all year.

Bronze and Bourbon Red strains sit at the top of the heritage range and can push past 150 in a good season under management aimed squarely at laying. The heritage and Midget White figures assume the ordinary case instead: a backyard flock, eggs collected daily, no supplemental light. Note that the Broad-Breasted row is the odd one out — it is higher than the others because it describes a lit, inseminated commercial breeder flock rather than a backyard bird, which is explained in full above.

Broodiness is the main brake on the total

A turkey hen builds a clutch of 10 to 15 eggs and then goes broody, and a broody hen stops laying for weeks while she sits — heritage hens do this readily, and repeatedly through the season. This is the single biggest management lever on the annual total, bigger than breed.

The Livestock Conservancy quantifies it plainly: heritage hens average 40 to 50 eggs a year when the eggs are pulled for artificial incubation, but only 20 to 25 when the birds incubate naturally. Letting hens set roughly halves the yield.

Every figure this calculator produces assumes you collect eggs daily and break hens off the nest when they go broody. That is a real, recurring chore, not a formality, and if you would rather let your hens hatch their own poults you should expect something closer to half the number shown. Which of those you want is a genuine choice: eggs, or poults.

Supplemental light, if you want to stretch the season

Turkeys lay in response to lengthening days, so the way to extend the season is day length, not warmth. Commercial turkey breeder practice, as set out in the US Poultry Industry Manual, photostimulates hens at 29 weeks with a minimum of 14 hours of light to 10 hours of dark at about 100 lux, and hens come into lay 31 to 32 weeks of age — roughly 18 days after the lights change.

Fourteen hours is the number to aim at in a backyard setup too. A few practical points that follow from it: add the light at the start of the morning rather than cutting the evening short, so birds are not caught off the roost when it goes dark; keep the schedule on a timer and consistent, because an interrupted cycle can knock hens out of lay; and do not light immature birds into laying early, which is why commercial flocks wait until 29 weeks. Hens also need the dark period, so running lights around the clock is counterproductive.

Age matters, and not the way it does with chickens

The calculator applies one figure per hen regardless of age, which is a simplification worth knowing about. Turkey hens keep laying far longer than chickens — Backyard Poultry puts a productive life at five to seven years, with output declining as they age, and eggs tending to get larger.

Where the peak falls is genuinely disputed. Cackle Hatchery puts peak production between two and five years of age, which would make turkeys the opposite of chickens, where the first laying year is the best one. The Livestock Conservancy says the opposite: that the first two years of lay are the highest-production years. We have not picked a side, and the calculator does not adjust for age in either direction. What both sources agree on is that a turkey hen has a long laying life and that production falls off in the later part of it, so a flock of old hens will underperform this calculator and a flock of pullets in their first season may too.

Turkey egg market

Turkey eggs are a genuine specialty product. They sell for $2 to $4 per egg at farmers markets ($24 to $48 per dozen). Restaurants and specialty buyers pay premium prices. The market is not saturated because most people don't know turkey eggs are edible — creating an education opportunity with every sale.

Turkey eggs taste similar to chicken eggs but richer. The size difference is noticeable — one turkey egg is roughly equivalent to two chicken eggs in volume.

Is turkey egg production worth it?

As a way to cut your egg bill: no. A turkey hen eats far more than a chicken and lays a fraction as many eggs, so if cheap eggs are the goal, chickens win outright and it is not close.

For specialty markets: potentially yes. The per-egg price premium is real and the buyer pool is niche but consistent.

For personal consumption: depends entirely on how much you value the novelty and flavor difference.

One caution on the value figure the calculator shows: it only holds if you actually sell or eat every egg at your reference price. The turkey-egg market is real but niche, so unless you have buyers lined up, read the number as potential rather than money in hand.

Where to go next

Egg yield connects to the other turkey decisions and the chicken comparison:

• The Turkey Feed Cost Calculator gives you the monthly feed figure this calculator needs as an input.
• The Turkey Housing Size Calculator tells you how much space your laying flock needs.
• The Egg Production Calculator runs the same numbers for a flock of chickens.
• The Family Egg Calculator works out how many layers your household actually needs.

Sources

• Heritage laying rate, seasonality, onset of lay, and peak age: Cackle Hatchery — “How Many Eggs Does a Turkey Lay?” Hatchery guidance rather than extension research, and we treat it as such. The average heritage hen lays about 100 eggs a year depending on strain, with Bronze and Bourbon Red laying half again that many; most turkeys lay an egg every other day or so; they are seasonal layers starting in late winter and laying into early summer, stopping through fall and winter; hens start at around 7 months; peak production falls between 2 and 5 years.
• Broodiness, egg size, and conservation-flock laying rates: The Livestock Conservancy — Heritage Turkey Breed Comparison Chart (2023). “The first two years of lay will be the highest production years for hens and can average 40-50 eggs per year if they are pulled for artificial incubation; if birds naturally incubate, the number will be much lower, towards 20-25 eggs.” Eggs are “fairly large… ideally ranging from 70-80 grams; larger hens will lay larger eggs.” The same chart notes hens larger than breed standard tend to be clumsy mothers that break eggs, and that heat stress is a risk for large birds.
• Commercial laying cycle, photostimulation, and lighting: The Poultry Site — US Poultry Industry Manual, “Production Cycle of Turkeys.” Hens are moved to the laying house and photostimulated at 29 weeks at a minimum of 14 hours light to 10 hours dark at about 100 lux, come into lay at 31 to 32 weeks, and are inseminated weekly through 26 to 28 weeks of egg production to hold fertility above 95 percent. This is the setting the commercial broad-breasted laying figures come from, and it is why those figures do not describe a backyard bird.
• Heritage range, productive lifespan, and season benchmark: Backyard Poultry — “Raising Heritage Turkey Breeds.” “The best heritage turkey strains under management conditions conducive to year-round laying can produce 150 or more eggs per year,” and “hens should lay for 5 to 7 years, though egg production decreases with age.” A young hen should reach at least 50 percent production in the breeding season, meaning at least 45 eggs in the 90 days from March to June.

Where the three constants stand. Heritage, 50, is the top of The Livestock Conservancy’s 40–50 for hens whose eggs are pulled for incubation — the same management this calculator assumes, so the figures are directly comparable. It was 110, which tracked Cackle’s hatchery number; we cite hatchery guidance elsewhere on this site where it agrees with extension sources, but here the best available source disagreed by a factor of two and we followed the Conservancy. Broad-Breasted, 110, is the midpoint of the 100–120 a commercial breeder flock produces under lighting and artificial insemination — a published figure, but for a setting almost no reader is in, which is why the calculator says so whenever that breed is selected. It was 88, which described nothing at all: below the commercial figure and far above a backyard reality of effectively zero. Midget White, 45, is ours outright — a 0.9 scaling of the heritage figure, because no published laying number for the breed exists.

Also ours: the assumption of daily egg collection with broody hens broken off the nest, which roughly doubles the yield against letting hens set and is now stated in the results panel rather than left implicit; the absence of any age adjustment, so a first-season pullet and a six-year-old hen return the same number even though every source agrees age matters; and all price figures, including the $3.00 default, the $2–4 per egg range, and the per-currency defaults. The break-even covers feed only — no poults, housing, bedding, or labour.