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!