Turkey egg predators

[Manxman]

We have two mother turkeys sitting on eggs and are finding two broken eggs each morning. They are in a fenced enclosure. Any suggestions?
I am in Queensland Australia.
The enclosure is fully fenced (tennis wire) with no signs of damage.
During the day the two mothers stay sitting on the nest, together, on 10 eggs. The Tom and two other hen turkeys go outside during the day but all spend the night inside.
In the morning I have been finding two broken eggs in a different corner of the enclosure. One still had a fulled formed dead chick inside it.

 

[Zoomie]

Hi @Manxman welcome to BYC!

There is not much info to go on here. Can you tell us what part of the world you live in? For example, if you lived in Alaska, you would have different predators than if you lived in Australia. Are you in the city? The country? Are there other birds in there? Is the top covered? etc. all of this would help people to understand what you might be dealing with. It could be as simple as another turkey coming over and stepping on the eggs when the hen gets up!

I hope people here can help you solve this mystery. Best of luck!

 

[sebloc]

Hello!
Have you noticed any signs of holes or openings in your enclosure?
That would be a potential problem.
What type of predator do you think is getting in? Are you sure it's a predator?
Good luck.

 

[Zoomie]

OK great, new information in the OP! And LOL, you DO live in Australia, that was a lucky guess on my part!

It sounds like you have a night time "visitor" that is carrying off eggs... what about a game camera, so you could see what was in there at night? I would expect maybe a rat could do something like that, but it's hard to say. Are there any holes in the ground where something may have burrowed in?

That's pretty tough losing them when they are that close to hatching. I hope you can put a stop to this. Like I say a game camera would help you to figure out what it is that's doing this. It sounds like you have most of your bases covered, so to speak.