disappearing hen nesting?...

[Hillsvale]

So we have a saga here... we got some turkey pairs/trios last spring... they all free range and some of the chicks then disappeared (new to turkeys lol). Got some new chicks and they went into lock down facilities until they were about 3 months old.

One of the birds that stuck around was a bourbon red which we thought was a tom because it would fluff up some and show the feather dance.....
sooo we went and found a mature bourbon hen, the initial bird stopped doing the "look at me" dance... he is a she!
sooo we source a new tom to go with our two hens which we plan on breeding in the spring...

the initial hen has started disappearing, we don't know where... she will be gone for hours and even over night. We know she is close because she isn't much of a flier and there aren't foot prints wandering off. I assume the hussy is building a nest but we can't find it...

Thoughts?

We have had one egg from one of them over christmas but I assumed the mature hen... maybe not!

 

[Olive Hill]

That's usually where they go when they disappear. Keep looking. And take your time so you don't look right past her. They're very good at camouflage.

It'd probably be best to go looking when she is on the nest because as good as they are at hiding themselves, they hide the eggs even better. If you do go looking for just the eggs, you need to be looking down right next to where you're walking. She'll have dug a nest down into some brush, laid them in a bucket, etc. The nest will be down in something, a depression so the eggs won't be visible from a distance.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

great picture.