Rural Gardening: Its begun! The peacock is displaying., 1 by daylilydaddy

daylilydaddy wrote:
Hey Tammy
I just keep a pair. I have had the same pair for about 7 years now. I either sell the eggs or if I can't find the nest I get the chicks when they are about 3-4 months old. The hen lays 2 clutches each year, a spring one and another in the late summer. The older the hen the more eggs you get. She lays between 5-7. I have gotten 100% hatching so far, when incubating or using a hen to hatch. Thats how I found them, I bought the eggs from them on eggbid. I saw the pair(they were local) and knew they where from good blood and went back and bought them. When I kept them caged, she never went broody. Now we live on a lot of acreage and it has no neighbors, so they get to free range and she broods her own eggs. The india blue(what I have) are very hardy. They stay out all winter and do wonderful. I feed them corn and scratch, with a shot of extra protein in the winter(dry cat/dog food) once a week. In the summer they eat almost nothing I feed them, except treats. There are 2 breeds, the India blue and Java greens. I want to add another hen in the spring, but in my climate they have to have india blue blood to make it without heated shelter. The Java greens are gorgeous and hope to find a hen with some of there blood in them. Check out http://www.eggbid,com to see the different variations of peafowl and for pricing. I would not order birds off there, unless they where local pick up, but its fun to look. They can be loud, but I think they sound like some exotic jungle bird. I love the sound. Their range can be up to a mile, but mine stay close to home. They can also fly well, mine roost in trees 40-50 feet up. One other thing they do is I get to collect and sell the feathers for about a buck each on ebay. My male gives me about 60 on each molt and I get 2 molts a year. Do some google searches and check them out, thats how I made up my mind to get them.
Geo
This was the pair before the feathers started growing in.