I left my blind and decoys up yesterday for a bit while I went mushroom hunting. When I came back to break down there was a hen near my decoys who flew off. When I went to pick up my decoys I not only saw a fresh turkey egg…but it was DIRECTLY behind my breeding hen. Never thought I’d see my first turkey egg like this but there it is…..
No way it'll last long from predators out in the open like that... I'd pick it up and try to find a farmer with a setting chicken or duck to incubate, or somebody that has an incubator...
You can hatch it in a chicken egg incubater-you know the due date.As a Vet and federal/state wildlife rehabber for 38 years I've done it 3x over the years when people find or now nests and bring them in .Tractor Supply can set you up
4nolz - How long will a fertile egg store before incubation? And what is the best way to store fertile eggs?
I'd read wild turkey hens lays an egg a day then leaves the eggs exposed in the nest until she is done laying (could be like 2 weeks) and then she will start setting and incubating...
Yes she sits longer each day until her full clutch is layed then incubates full time.IDK but I think a day without incubation would probably be max just a guess.Im not sure how long any of these were uncovered.
I've had a lone hen visit my bird feeder, gobbling up droppings... she's been coming over past 2-3 week's... last couple days hardly a sign. I believe she is incubating at her nest, not far away. scentman
Yeah Old Reb... The hen lays them all before she starts brooding...
I have a property I temporarily kenneled my Britany years ago and one day while letting him run he flushed a hen off a nest which was probably only about 40 yards or so from where he was chained... To top it off, the nest was only about 5 yards off the township road and maybe only about 25 yards from where I'd park...
Anyhow when she flushed I called the dog off her and she only flew a few yards and didn't seem real spooked so I figured there was a nest and sure enough there were 12 or 13 eggs (can't remember) in a nest... This was in the woods but I couldn't believe where she nested especially that close to the blacktopped road...
I was hoping she'd return... Couple years before that a buddy flush one off a nest while turkey hunting and that hen never returned, but that is another story...
So the next day knowing where the nest was and could see she was back and setting on the nest so I delicately done my daily routine keeping the dog from her direction, and this went on for 20-some days, and we never spooked or flushed her again... I could walk up the blacktop road and look down over and see her setting without spooking her... This was a wooded lot I was planning on building on with a house across the road maybe 50 yards or so up the hill with these neighbors having young kids playing in the yard a lot... I assume she got used to the dog, the kids and traffic on the road...
So finally (I think it was the 28th day, can't remember) I could see her setting high on the nest and figured she probably has poults under her and/or poults hatching... Sure enough the next day she was gone and every one of the eggs had hatched... It put a smile on my face...
My theory was the eggs were being laid daily and after laying an egg she'd leave the area and the day we flushed her was probably her first day of brooding and the dog knew she was there... After being careful while there and keeping the dog from going her direction she brooded those eggs as normal and I know they all hatched on the same day...
Turkey's incubation is 28 days;so the first egg of 12+- is 12 days old before the hen starts incubating.All hatch within 12 hours or so.I have hatched :"found" wild turkey eggs.Some hatched in 3 days so they were close.Farmer had cut the field and ruined most of the eggs. I have all the required licenses for NY;hatch 1K of pheasant,a few chukar and bobwhites every year. You are not suppose to release "wild" turkeys back into the wild for disease purposes. I know they eat three times what a pheasant will.I currently have 700 pheasant eggs in incubators.
Not to highjack this thread, but Wildan2 - Do you have any Bobwhite quail eggs for sale?
I miss the Bobs and their whistle and while growing up as a kid we had lots of coveys around but the winters of '77-'78 killed them ALL in my area... Since have shot released birds a few times on preserves and have thought about trying to raise a few to release behind the house just to hear them again, even bought a chicken pen at TSC a few years ago to do the Johnnyhouse thing but it is still in the box because I couldn't find anybody locally that sold Bobwhite eggs... After looking up incubators today for this thread, got it on my mind again and learned there are a few pheasant hatcheries in my area of the state, but after making a few calls, none have Bobwhites...
I’ve inadvertently booted a few hens off nests, over the years. Sometimes they return, sometimes they don’t, unfortunately. Several years ago, my wife and I were mushroom hunting our timber, along the abandoned RR tracks that run through the property. She was on one side of a steep hillside of the RR bed and I was on the other side, out of view of each other. She starts screaming and hollering, and I scrambled up the bank, over to where she was. While she was bent over, searching for mushrooms, she stumbled right into a hen turkey on her nest. The hen exploded off the nest, right into and over my wife, striking her in the face with its wing, and knocking her hat off as well. Scared the crap out of her! We checked on the nest for the next several days, but the hen never returned. There were at least a dozen eggs in the nest, so I’m pretty positive that she was incubating them.
Zbone most preserves buy day old chicks last I saw they got them in the mail! Released birds don't survive statistically and it's probably not worth it.I have a lot of bird dog clients with preserves some shoot 10,000+ per year.
Yeah 4nolz, am aware release Bobwhite strains (genetics) have very low survival rate in the wild, but just wanted to try maybe a half dozen to pen in the back for a while just to hear them and likely turn them loose during summer and see if one or two would hang around for a while, but I understand none would likely survive to winter let alone through winter... A freakn stray cat would probably have them in a day...8^(
After researching a little, even wild Bobs only have a life expectancy of 2 years...
Also know chicks sent through the mail don't have a good survival rate either, and eggs through the mail is about 50/50 from what I hear kinda why I was trying to find some local, but if mail order, thought about trying Strombergs, they seem to be a big outfit...
If ya look around some hatcheries have Bobwhite mutation colors that are pretty cool like these Snowflake Bobwhites...
If you want some turkey eggs to hatch get the proper paperwork and then tell all of your buddies that cut hay. Around here those are the most consistent at finding nest and even if the leave grass around the nest hens normally won’t come back.
