A friend of mine gave me 5 fertile turkey eggs to hatch out under one of my broody hens (I also set 11 Araucana eggs underneath another broody hen). Imagine my excitement at finding, after candling at day14 this past Friday, all 5 turkey eggs were viable (looks like 6 out of the 11 Araucana eggs could be viable). Fast forward to yesterday when I went to gather eggs and found that 2 of my turkey eggs had gone missing. No remnants, no nothing, just-plain-gone!
Hubby had gathered the eggs Saturday night and said he thought that there were a few less turkey eggs than what was originally placed but he didn’t think any more about it.
We're certain that it was a black rat snake. Now that the weather has warmed up we’ve seen a few out and about. Why oh why did it have to be the turkey eggs, dagnabit!!!
Why not the non-viable eggs in one of the other nesting boxes? So now, all the eggs as well as the hens brooding the eggs will be moved into the brooder which is located in a secure building until hatch day. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the last three turkey eggs hatch out with no problems.
Okay done with feeling sorry for myself now.
We're certain that it was a black rat snake. Now that the weather has warmed up we’ve seen a few out and about. Why oh why did it have to be the turkey eggs, dagnabit!!!
Okay done with feeling sorry for myself now.
