Hello there,
My name is Vince and l live in central NY. I have a wild turkey that has nested in a hollowed out tree stump (pict. to follow) a great home for her. When l saw she was laying eggs, I did some research and have learned alot. She has layed about 15 eggs once a day for two weeks then started sitting on them on may 15th, all seemed to be going well....and this leads me to my question. She is still sitting on the eggs and it has been much longer then the 28 days that l have read about. Do you think the eggs are ok or going to hatch? l have pics to show you of the eggs and they all look healthy, except yesterday when she left the nest to feed I noticed that and egg in the middle had alot of flys on it and there was an bad egg smell. I was unable to get a pic of that because she came back to soon. She is still sitting on them and now eating the flys that are all around her. So l guess my real question is can l hope to see any of the eggs hatch? I cant find this type of info on the web.
Thanks for you time,
Hopeful in Syracuse,

Turkey eggs take 28 days to hatch. Sometimes they are a day or two early or late. It would be rare for them to ever hatch past 31 days. It's been 42 days since she started sitting if you are correct on that. There's no way they will hatch if that's true. The fact that there are flies and a bad smell seems to verify that. Are there tom turkeys around? If so, they were probably fertile (but sometimes a hen or tom may be infertile) but may have died sometime during incubation. Normally, a hen turkey will abandon her nest past 30 some days since she knows they won't hatch. It's not healthy for her to continue to brood. At the same time, for you to interfere wouldn't be natural either. If she does leave the nest at some point, you can open the eggs to see how far along they got. If they died in the first week or were never fertile, you won't see any embryos at all. Sorry I don't have better news.

thank you for your feedback, l have been checking her once an hr. and she still sits in there now eating the flys around her. l have not interfeard at all but she still sits on the nest and is sad to see. The entire time from the very first egg there has been no tom around, not once. If its not good for her to sit on them any longer, should l do anything to spook her away? in a gentle manor of course. Also l have some great picks that l would love for you to look at but l cant seem to figure out how to post them on here. I did however send them to you in a seperate email.
thanks again for your response

I saw the photos. Unfortunately, I can't tell anything about the condition of the eggs. I suggest snatching one egg the next time she's off the nest. Then, candle it. To do that, tape a toilet paper tube over the end of a flashlight. In a totally dark room, put the egg onto the end of the paper tube and turn on the light. If the egg is fully developed, it will be black with almost no light getting through. If it's piped (poult broke the air cell), it's all black. If not, there's still an air cell down one end where light goes through. Rotate the egg around to look. If any embryo died early, it will let the light shine through completely. If partially formed, then there will be a partial black area. If the egg is fully black, you might see movement if it's still alive. You can then consult back with me if you want, or then, I suggest breaking that egg open to see what's inside (unless you did see movement in which case you might want to return it to the nest). I really doubt it's viable unless it's really been incubated less than you think. If there is not a live poult inside (which I suspect), then the entire clutch is most likely in a similar condition. Once you've verified that, then take the eggs away from her when she gets off the nest again. She will be very upset when she comes back to an empty nest but she really can't sit on it forever because her own health will suffer. Wild turkey hens mate with the tom, and then he should stay away while she's incubating and raising the young. Have you ever seen males around or just not recently?

If, by some miracle, you find that the egg you broke open has a live embryo (you see it, no smell; it might move; no it cannot be saved if the egg is broken in this manner), then the eggs have not been incubated for 40 some days but less than you thought. In that case, leave her with the remaining eggs.