Herding Peas and Gathering Eggs

Lots of developments in the past few days. Yesterday my father and I put up a temporary shelter in one of the new pens and finally got all our colors separated. We moved Zephyrus, my white peacock, and his two blue pied hens to their new outdoor pen. They'd previously been in with Pete, my old blue peacock, and a blue hen. We then moved Spaz, my younger blue peacock, in with his father Pete so he would leave Dusty, my cameo male, alone. Instead of going through all the stress of catching the birds, we herded them. This was my father's brilliant idea, and it's worked marvelously. The back door of our aviary actually opens up to the eighth outdoor pen. Outside the main door of that pen we created a temporary walkway out of goat panels and covered it with the excess netting from the outdoor runs. We ended the hallway at the last pen we wanted to put birds into, and temporarily covered the doorways of the other pens. Then we just separated out the birds we wanted to move, opened the door, herded them out and walked them all the way to their new pen. It worked really well both times we did it, and proved to be more successful then herding many of our other animals (the goats, for example). The only difficult part was getting just the birds we wanted out the door and not the ones we wanted to stay put. Spaz ended up causing the most trouble. He just did not want to leave his pen, even though he eyes the door every time I go in to feed him. Dad ended up just grabbing him and carrying halfway to his new pen. He didn't much appreciate that, but Spaz is far tamer than any of my other peas so he didn't freak out too badly.

Spaz and his papa seem to be getting along just fine. I was worried, because Spaz can be a mean old bugger to other males. He was the first peachick we were ever able to keep alive, and he hatched without any siblings. Therefore he spent the first six months of his life by himself, and now he thinks he ought to be king of man and bird. Even as a two year old he would dominate my blackshoulder male who was fully mature. We then moved him in a pen with some random birds approximately his age we'd purchased at a sale, including my emerald. He was constantly harassing the emerald, chasing him around the pen. I spent countless nights in the aviary, yelling at him to leave Beo alone. But there was no pen of his own to move him to, so the poor emerald had to deal. The next summer Spaz started out on the top of the pecking order, but part way through the season Beo snapped. He fought back, and suddenly Spaz was in the rafters, absolutely refusing to come down. We didn't think he was eating, so we moved him into another pen with my cameos. He flew right up in the rafters and stayed there. We put little food and water cups up there and fed him specially. For about seven months we never saw him on the ground, even though the cameo male never went after him. Then he just got over it. Soon he was king again. And I came back from college one day to find the emerald male moved into the pen with Spaz and the cameo! I was not pleased. For the first few months of summer there was a tentative peace, Spaz not being too wretched unless one of the other boys dared to come down when they weren't supposed to. Then I finally got my emerald pair moved out into their own new pen on Father's day, and yesterday Dusty was given his reprieve. I haven't seem Spaz fighting with his dad yet, which is great, and it was actually Pete displaying today and not Spaz so hopefully they can get along until we get another pen done so we can move Spaz out on his own. If ever there was a peacock who shouldn't be in with other boys, it's him! But space is always a problem.

Today was an exciting egg day. It started to thunderstorm about the time I normally collect eggs, so I ran up with a flashlight and an egg carton. I almost stepped on an egg in the blue pen that the hen had laid right in front of the door, and I also found a turkey egg (My mom is intent on getting a peacock turkey cross, so I let her keep a Royal Palm hen that hatched with the peas last year in with my birds). There was a cameo egg in pen two and then surprise--an egg in my pen of two year olds, now reduced to one hen and five peacocks. This was the first egg I'd gotten out of my two year olds, although one man I sold a hen to months ago told me that she had started laying. I doubt it's fertile, but it would be fun if it was, since most of those two year olds have white flights and throat patches, so their offspring might be something fun. I then went to the outside pens and got another silver pied egg (my 17th since they were moved on Father's Day--boy I love those gals!) and an emerald egg, even though she had laid yesterday. My brothers made fun of me, but I really think the storm scared it out of her. She wasn't supposed to lay again until tomorrow.

And yesterday, joy of joys, my father found a purple egg! Hope she lays me six or eight and they are all fertile. I'm still looking into getting another purple hen to put in with my purple blackshoulder boy for next year.

Ten more chicks have hatched in the past two days. Mostly blues with a few blackshoulders. I've got chicks all over the house. The cage I bought on ebay to move the oldest ones out to the aviary (as soon as it gets hooked up with electric) got appropriated for the new babies because there was no where else to put them. Oi vei! But there are certainly worse troubles in life.

Cousins

Happy 4th of July to any readers out there!

It's been a fun day on the farm, thanks to four darling cousins of all my peababies. About three and a half weeks ago my little brother, best friend, and I rescued nine wild turkey eggs my dad's employee had found while mowing one of our hay fields. The unfortunate mother had gotten caught in the mower and lost a leg, but Landis stopped before he crushed most of the eggs. The three of us drove up in my mom's gator, collected the eggs and stuck them in the incubator with my peas. Yesterday, four of the eggs hatched. They are just the most darling things ever! I love peachicks, of course, but these things are just so cute! So much smaller than the peachicks, and they have these gorgeous black stripes running down their brown faces. I don't know why I'm so excited--I normally have no love for turkeys. My mother likes them, and always ends up letting them out to roam the farm. The hens try to nest and fall prey to the unfortunate mess of predators we have here (foxes, dogs, coyotes, weasels, hawks, etc) and the boys get mean and chase me and my brothers around. But I've got awhile until these guys are trouble, and right now they are just fun! In peacock news, I sold five this morning. One two year old and four yearlings. That only leaves me with twenty-three yearlings and six two year olds--from which I'm probably going to keep four. So only twenty-five birds to sell (aside from all the new chicks, of course). Not so bad at all! When I first got home this summer I was imagining having fifty plus birds to carry over plus all the chicks. But at this rate I'll find new homes for nearly all of the older birds before I head back to school. I'm glad. I love 'em, but I really need the pen space so I can keep (or get) their parents properly separated.

And great news--the emerald laid an egg and didn't damage it! At my dad's request I went up extra early to check for eggs to snatch it away before she had a chance to decide she wanted another meal. Hopefully I can get five or six eggs from her and at least half will hatch. I'd really like emerald babies! There were also two more silver pied eggs--I love these guys. I really do. My two silver pied hens have been laying for me pretty consistently every other day (although sometimes one of them gets a day off track) since the night we moved them to their new pen--Father's Day. I'm so excited for silver pied babies. Now the eggs better be fertile! Those two boys in there have been showing off like crazy, so they should be. I figure the first few eggs were probably fertilized by the blackshoulder male in their original pen, but I hope by now these eggs have to be purely silver pied.
Consensus on the peafowl email list I'm a member of is that my little mystery chick is a white eyed! I've very excited about that!

On a less exciting note, Dusty, my cameo male, is starting to lose his feathers. I found a few last night, and found some more today, so I can't deny it anymore. It always makes me sad when the feathers start coming out. I'm hoping most of the birds will hold out for another month or so though. My purple hen still hasn't laid me an egg, and I really want purples this year!

But overall, a great day in peacock land! Not a particularly eventful holiday, but all is well with my birds. Hope all is well with you and your families.

Happy Independence Day!

Peababies and random thoughts

We had five more chicks hatch out a few days ago. A blackshoulder, three blues and a little mystery guy who I think is a white eyed (the lighter one stepping in its food dish). Slightly less exciting when I consider the 10 eggs in the incubator due to hatch that didn't. When dad checked them to see if any more were hatching, he said at least six of the weren't fertile. Usually our first batch or two of eggs have pretty awful fertility, but it goes up as the season progresses. This year we only had one or two infertile eggs in the beginning but seem to be having a bout of it now. Frustrating, but that's how these things go. The weather has been crazy, and that could certainly be the cause. It's less heartbreaking than having 10 dead in shell chicks, which we've had in previous years. But realistically, if we hatched every egg I collected we'd have peacocks coming out of our ears, and I'm always complaining the hens aren't laying as much as they're supposed to. I have to work on that perspective thing sometimes. But I just hate when eggs don't hatch!

Speaking of excess peas, I have been selling some of my yearlings and two year olds lately. Someone's coming tomorrow morning to take 5, so that'll put a dent in the 35+ I still have left. Now that there's the potential to have pen space to keep a few youngins, I've been studying the flock to see who I'd want to keep. There's a pretty spalding two year old boy with a nice white throat patch, some white wing feathers and tiny white specks in the scattered scraggly eyes he's developed. Not a glorious white eyed like some I've seen pictures of, but I'd like to keep him and see what his full train looks like. Plus, it gives me an excuse to keep a couple yearling spalding hens. These gals are gorgeous. I just love their brown chests and green necks. Hopefully I can find one or two with a few white feathers and maybe they'll throw something fun by the end of next summer. There's also a yearling white eyed male who I want to keep. This boy is really going to be white eyed, I think. He's already got completely white eye feathers coming out of his tail, and he's only a yearling. I think I remember him when he was a chick, and I think he looked like the little light chick who just hatched, so that gives me more evidence that's what he is (besides being the only thing that makes sense genetically). But I'll have to buy a hen for him. None of my hens seem obviously white eyed.

One major gripe--after waiting years for emerald chicks (got Beo, my male at an animal sale about four years ago but didn't find him a girl until last January, and didn't get them separated until Father's Day) my emerald hen seems to have developed a taste for her own eggs! We've had a problem in the main aviary with hens laying eggs off roosts, but the roosts are really high and we realized there were mice in the straw scaring the hens away from where they were supposed to be nesting. But in the new pens where the emeralds are the roost is only three feet off the ground and there's plenty of rodent free places for the hens to lay. My silver pieds started laying the day they were moved and have still be giving me eggs almost regularly since, all laid in the dirt in a corner of the pen. The emerald and purple hens had not been laying. Three nights ago my dad found pieces of egg shell under the emerald roost. Last night I went out to collect eggs and saw one as soon as I approached the pen, but it didn't look right. And it wasn't--the duller end of the egg was completed gone and there was still a little yoke in the shell. It didn't look like she laid this one off the roost, it looked like she picked at it and ate it! Boy was I angry. Tomorrow will be the moment of truth to see if she does it again. This will probably be her last clutch of the year, and I really would love a few emerald chicks. Beo's half emerald, half blue babies from the last two years have been so cute, I'd love some with more spalding in them.
Oh well.

This has to be something peafowl developed in captivity. You're never going to propagate your species if you eat your own potential offspring. Geez!