Let me start off by saying that if you own or have ever owned any, you know turkeys are goobers. Turkey logic is an oxymoron. They never do anything that makes sense to anyone except themselves.
The scenario: My chicken pen is constructed on slope, so the netting that hangs over it is lower on the high end, which is where the flat-topped shelter for my chickens sits. Any bird that chooses to walk across the net will inevitably be walking on top of the shelter as it droops under it's weight.
Next to the pen is a tall dog kennel that I converted into a chicken pen, which has plastic lattice secured over the top. My loose roos and sometimes a turkey will roost there at night. Since the top is open, I once put a couple of sheets of green corrugated fiberglass sheeting on top to try to shield my birds from the rain. At some point, the wind blew the sheeting onto the neighboring pen's netting, and I was just too lazy to move it. Consequently, the turkeys and a couple of roos walked across it, breaking it into several pieces. (It was old and becoming fragile.) The pieces ended up in the low spot of the netting over the shelter.
Today I'm making my rounds, and I notice that one of my turkey hens is sitting in the pile of pieces on the netting, her butt touching the top of the shelter. I go in the pen, check for eggs, and as I'm walking out, I see a broken turkey eggshell sitting on the netting by the door. My first thought was "How did that get up there?" My second thought was that the realization that the turkey hen didn't squawk and move away when I approached the shelter to check the eggs. Then I thought "No way." I checked around her, and sure enough, she's made a nest way up in the netting and has about 8 eggs in it!
Who said turkeys were ground nesters?!
Her mother had made her nests in places that were so openly obvious, yet well hidden, that I nearly stepped on her the first time I went looking for her. One could think her daughter learned a lesson from her mother after her mother got eaten on her third nest, but I seriously doubt it. Turkeys hens normally like a secluded hiding place where they can watch everything, not in the dead middle of everyone in the open!
The scenario: My chicken pen is constructed on slope, so the netting that hangs over it is lower on the high end, which is where the flat-topped shelter for my chickens sits. Any bird that chooses to walk across the net will inevitably be walking on top of the shelter as it droops under it's weight.
Next to the pen is a tall dog kennel that I converted into a chicken pen, which has plastic lattice secured over the top. My loose roos and sometimes a turkey will roost there at night. Since the top is open, I once put a couple of sheets of green corrugated fiberglass sheeting on top to try to shield my birds from the rain. At some point, the wind blew the sheeting onto the neighboring pen's netting, and I was just too lazy to move it. Consequently, the turkeys and a couple of roos walked across it, breaking it into several pieces. (It was old and becoming fragile.) The pieces ended up in the low spot of the netting over the shelter.
Today I'm making my rounds, and I notice that one of my turkey hens is sitting in the pile of pieces on the netting, her butt touching the top of the shelter. I go in the pen, check for eggs, and as I'm walking out, I see a broken turkey eggshell sitting on the netting by the door. My first thought was "How did that get up there?" My second thought was that the realization that the turkey hen didn't squawk and move away when I approached the shelter to check the eggs. Then I thought "No way." I checked around her, and sure enough, she's made a nest way up in the netting and has about 8 eggs in it!
Who said turkeys were ground nesters?!
Her mother had made her nests in places that were so openly obvious, yet well hidden, that I nearly stepped on her the first time I went looking for her. One could think her daughter learned a lesson from her mother after her mother got eaten on her third nest, but I seriously doubt it. Turkeys hens normally like a secluded hiding place where they can watch everything, not in the dead middle of everyone in the open!
