wild turkey nest 2026 northern Minnesota

I was cutting bramble with our mower before the growing season gets underway and a turkey surprised me by popping up and ambling away from me. I backed out of its area and put the mower away. Turns out she was sitting on a nest! That was two hours ago and I haven’t seen her come back. How long can nests go unattended? Is this maybe normal and I didn’t ruin the chance to have their family on my yard? I’ve noticed her alone (which seemed weird) over the last day or two — now I know why! I did spread some possible food around nearby in case that helps.

It looks like she's back! I saw her eating where I dumped all that food.

It's kind of remarkable, as shy as they are, that she let me get about 20' away on a riding mower before she took off.

We had these turkey chicks in our yard in 2021. This video was taken on July 5th of that year while I follow them around our raspberry patch. They're super-cute. So I'm looking forward to having a pack these voracious adorable little dinosaurs hunting the insect population down in a couple months!

Christopher Weeks wrote:.... So I'm looking forward to having a pack these voracious adorable little dinosaurs hunting the insect population down in a couple months!

We would love to have more of these come across our property on the other side of the state from you here in the Red River Valley.  A few years back, we did have one that we would see mingling with the chickens and farm geese, but still pretty wary.  By contrast, the twin urban centers of Fargo-Moorhead are beginning to consider them a pest!  But I still love the way they stop traffic.....have rarely ever seen a road-kill turkey....and even witnessed them going through a cross-walk at a red light.  During that incident, they really were testing fate a bit.....they had stopped during the cross-over to peck dead grasshoppers out of the front grill of a large pick-up truck!  Turkeys, coyotes, mountain lions, razorbacks....they all seem classic opportunists if the situation permits. :-)

If these eggs are broken and scattered across 30 feet, does that mean something (raccoon, prolly) got them or they hatched but aren’t hanging around?

MN DNR says turkey eggs take 28 days to hatch. So if the nest was a few days old when I found it on April 30 now is a perfectly reasonable time for them to be out. I don’t know how turkey clutches behave when they're first born, but since it wasn’t much of a nest, my guess is they are mobile quickly and I’m hoping that the mama just took her babies into the woods.