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.