TSrying to figure out what ate teiehe turkeys eggs. Turkey hen laid and has been sitting on 13 eggs. We had a ton of rainn here the last 2-3 days and I never saw her get off the nest. I checked on her this morning and all seemed ok. Sun is out today and as I expected she got off the nest to come eat. She did this just as I was leaving the house. I wasn't even gone an hour. When I got home she was still out but in the dog kennel that is open and unoccupied. She's really good at walking in the door but forgets how to get out. Anyway I got her out and when to check on the eggs. They were ALL gone! She was beelining it back to her nest so I'm thinking that she didn't know her eggs were gone. She is nesting on a very wooded hillside in my horse field. Her nest is up against a tree. The horses are not able to get to the nest as it is too steep. This hill is also very close to the house. I can't see her nest because she is on the hillside facing away from the house. I bet its not 75 to 100 feet from the house though.
Anyway, I walked around to the bottom of the hill (her nest is maybe 10 feet up the hill) and there at the bottom were broken eggs with nothing in them. Licked clean. The poults would have been maybe a week from hatching. I looked around and searched through the leaves and found one egg intact. All this time the turkey hen is standing by me cooing. I put the egg back in the nest and she immediately went and got on the nest. I kept looking around hoping to find another egg and about 15 feet away there is a den of some sort burrowed under a tree base. The hole doesn't look big but with all the rain it is possible that dirt got washed back in. Just at the entrance to the hole there was a red mass of what was left of a developing poult. Only piece I saw. One fly on it and it was clean so it hadn't been there long.
So what burrows a den, eats eggs, and comes out in the daytime and eats fast??
Oh - I wanted to mention. The turkeys are not even mine. They belong to a neighbor who's dog chased them away and then they decided to move in to my house. The neighbors have had them for 2 years and she never laid an egg before or went broody. I guess they like me.
Anyway, I walked around to the bottom of the hill (her nest is maybe 10 feet up the hill) and there at the bottom were broken eggs with nothing in them. Licked clean. The poults would have been maybe a week from hatching. I looked around and searched through the leaves and found one egg intact. All this time the turkey hen is standing by me cooing. I put the egg back in the nest and she immediately went and got on the nest. I kept looking around hoping to find another egg and about 15 feet away there is a den of some sort burrowed under a tree base. The hole doesn't look big but with all the rain it is possible that dirt got washed back in. Just at the entrance to the hole there was a red mass of what was left of a developing poult. Only piece I saw. One fly on it and it was clean so it hadn't been there long.
So what burrows a den, eats eggs, and comes out in the daytime and eats fast??
Oh - I wanted to mention. The turkeys are not even mine. They belong to a neighbor who's dog chased them away and then they decided to move in to my house. The neighbors have had them for 2 years and she never laid an egg before or went broody. I guess they like me.
