This is the latest addition to my menagerie!
I have a new peacock!
Stunning!
BEAUTIFUL bird!
I want to try and incubate peacock eggs... OMG I am a incubator fool.... want to try a few of everything... Some one Please stop me...
Love your new addition.
It's a beautiful bird, but I just don't know what good they are, except that they are very pretty. Do they have anyother real use? I always wondered why people raised them. Does anyone eat them? I'm serious, I just don't know.
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance. ~John Ruskin
What a lovely bird! Congrats.
What a beauty!
I have been breeding peafowl for 25 years and every time I go to a family reunion someone asks me,
" what are they good for", answer nothing. "Then why do you breed them", answer, because I like them. They eat then in India and around the world but in India they have almost stopped because as the peafowl numbers go down, the numbers of Cobras go up. They are very close to a wild Turkey in taste. Haystack, you can not eat a lot of flowers that are grown and no one asks what are they god for. Something are raised and grown not for food for the body but food for the soul.
jessaree, do you have any White hens or Blue hens with white wing feathers? The white gene is recessive and easy to reproduce.
Kenboy & Catscan, I completely agree!!
Technically, peafowl, like geese and guineas, have also been used as alert birds...as Moxon reminded me when I quoted Ruskin at her....:0)
I don't know about peafowl being alert birds, mine scream every time a loud truck goes down the road and if I whistle for the dogs, or if they just feel like it. As far as watch dogs I prefer a Doberman.
I have a white female, a white female with "spots" & some with light wing tips. Here's more pics of them.
White is really pretty but that blue and green is something else! How old are they when they have the full set of feathers (sure that's the wrong term) ?
OK, in the picture I see a White hen in the back and what I think is a Silver Pied hen behind her and the hen with her head in the center of the tire looks to be split to White. White is a recessive gene. Silver Pieds are Pieds that are 90% white and are homozygous to the White Eyed gene ( meaning the males have a splash of White in every ocelli of his train). A true Pied or Silver Pied carries one Pied or Silver Pied gene and one White gene, so all Pieds are co-dominant to White.
White bred to White = White
White bred to Blue split to White = 1/2 White and 1/2 split to White
White bred to Silver Pied = 1/2 White and 1/2 Silver Pied
White bred to Blue = Blue, all split to White
Pictured is a Silver Pied cock.
A cock bird molts in the late Summer of his second year and grows out his full train starting in the Fall and growing until early Spring of his third year.
This is a very young Pied Spalding cock with 15/16 Green blood.
I had no idea it would take that long! When you say the pied spalding is 15/16 green blood, what does that mean? He'll have a green train?
All peafowl are either one of three species, India Blue, Green muticus or Congo. Congo being the rarest and closest to extension. There is only a few in the world and money alone will not get you one. I have a friend who was in charge of all Congo in the US and he sent me pictures, I have never seen one. Next comes the Green and there is three subspecies, Muticus muticus, Muticus imperator and Muticus spicifer, all are green and have no other colors or color patterns. There are nine colors in the India Blue and three color patterns. There is one color that originated in the Spalding. Spalding is a term given to the hybrid cross between the Blue and Greens.
The Pied Spalding that I have is a product of breeding a Java Green to an India Blue Pied. The offspring will be 1/2 Java and split to White or Pied. The split to White birds will have white wing feathers and the split to Pied will not. Breading them together get you some Pieds with 1/2 Java Green blood. These are bred back to the Green and the process begins all over again. To get a bird 15/16 Java and Pied color pattern takes about 25 to 30 years or more. Someone started this and I have taken it a bit further. I am working on going to 31/32 Java Green blood in the Pied and the White. The Java is a larger bird that the India Blue and has a tight crest with yellow cheeks. I am trying to get colors and pattern of the Blue, that look like the Green in other respects.
Pictured below is the Congo;
Pictured below is the Java Green;
Wow, The Congo is stunning! The feathers on it's head almost look like wire. When cross breeding are there fertility problems? These are such beautiful birds, I wish you the best of luck getting the 31/32 Java Green in the Pied & white. Genetics are fascinating! Do you have a website? I'd love to see the rest of your birds. Thanks for the great details!
Very pretty, dessaree! Congrats on your new addition. I hope you get some very pretty babies from him!
I know that some people are turned off by the noise peacocks can make, but by two peacocks are very quiet in comparison to others, with the female making the most noise. My male, Mr. Chicken, just seems to go about doing his own thing. He doesn't really call much at all. There seems to be another male peacock somewhere off in the distance who makes alot of noice, and Mr. Chicken will occasionally answer. But not much. We think he is going for a Rat Pack, jazzy cool kind of a vibe. He has his own routine, he swings on this swing, is pleased with Mrs. Chicken--who pointedly ignores him--and is now happy that the evil hen is not pulling out his tail feathers any more. We find the female to be developing her own personality now. She is starting to be a little comedienne and honks like a hoarse bugle. Mr. Chicken will let out an alarm call, but seemingly only for coyotes. They really are in my flock because they make me happy! And I guess they a weird because they don't make much noise.
Here is Mr. Chicken with what is left of this tail feathers.
