Where did my turkey hen go?

     Well on Sunday that is exactly what I said, "Where did my turkey hen go?"  I came home from going to the store and noticed that Claudia (our chocolate turkey hen) had disappeared.  I went against some advice about clipping her's and our toms' wings so they wouldn't fly out of our 700 sq ft run.  Earlier that morning I had heard some wild turkeys gobbling towards the back end of the property.  So naturally I thought she had flown the coop and ran to them.  Of course our two toms were pacing and gobbling franticly.  So I walked to the end of the property searching for her by calling her name but never found her.  Well about an hour later she showed back up and went right back into the coop again.  Well I didn't think much about it and went on about my business.  

    On Monday, during the middle of the day I heard our toms freaking out again.  As I went out to check on them I noticed that Claudia was missing again.  However, this time I heard her yelping back at the toms.  I went back to see where she was and I realized that she had a nest next to my shed.  I thought it was awesome but knowing that the coyotes have been getting closer to the house lately, I decided to take her egg and her back to the coop.  And then I put her nest in the coop under the chicken nest boxes.  I know its not a good idea but I wanted her to be safe.  Also, I clipped her primary flight feathers to be able to keep her in the coop.   

So now it has been 2 days and she now has 3 eggs and seems to be doing very well. Every once in a while a chicken hen will go over and look at the eggs and then jump into their nest boxes. For turkey hens, they love the privacy of a nest to where they can hide very well in their nest. In the wild, I have jumped several hens because I did not see the hens sitting on eggs. So if you are raising turkeys, you might want ot keep in mind that the hens will fly out and find a private area to lay their eggs.