2014 breeding season begins, post your results

[zazouse]

I just had my first feather come out.

You have feathers coming out too?

 

[KsKingBee]

I just had my first feather come out.

You should have that looked at.

 

[DylansMom]

You have feathers coming out too?

You should have that looked at.

 

[zazouse]

Newbie here...

After recently moving onto a 'farm' where I can once again have 'farm' animals after 20 years of living in neighborhoods but growing up on a hobby farm, I really wanted to get a some peafowl again... But, after hitting up a few local livestock swaps and looking around online I had pretty much given up on peafowl this year due to finances, the money just wasn't there to invest in birds or eggs that could literally go *POOF* in the night...

Then as luck would have it I came across someone local that had peahens and guineas laying eggs and they pretty much just wanted the eggs to be used for something beyond omelettes... The price they wanted for the eggs was insignificant as they just wanted a little money to cover feed, so game on...

I will be making a more detailed post later on about my incubator and sorts, but lets just say that I had days to get everything lined up and running as the eggs were ready before I was... Picked up a Farm Innovators cheapy foam incubator, did some quick mods (I'll discuss them later) gave it two days to stabilize and I was off to the races...

Dropped my first eggs in the incubator on May 24th, 7 of them... Two of them candled out as infertile at a few days and I confirmed they were duds a week later, leaving me with 5 viable eggs...

Again for another post I have a mix of eggs in the incubator, I know most will suggest against it but well I'm rolling with it do to constraints... Anyway that first batch of 5 peas was due this last Friday-ish, but I was also hatching out some bantam chickens Wednesday/Thursday, and got a big surprise on Thursday morning when I opened up the incubator to pull out the day old bantams and had a pea looking at me, didn't even see him pip, move or chirp at all... Two more eggs pipped and hatched Thursday night into Friday, one being a white... The two remaining eggs had also pipped on Thursday (weak pips, just a little crack) but they never zipped, come Friday night about 24 hours later I carefully opened up their pip hole a bit, and bumped the humidity way high... Saturday morning still no progress but they were alive in there, so I decided I had to make the call help or not, and help won... I zipped both eggs but left the membrane fully intact, and good thing as it appeared to still have some blood remaining, kept the humidity real high, and had those eggs on wet paper towels... 12 hour later still no progress but the blood was out of the membranes, so again the decision to finish my help or not came around and I went with help now as it's now going on 48 hours after the initial pip... Opened the membrane and then let the pea do the rest, and it was obvious they were weak, took them hours to crawl from the shell, but they managed to get out eventually... 24 hours later and they are doing well, so well they are in the brooder with their siblings...

In addition to the stress of the delayed hatch on two, the white pea that hatched on Friday had a slipped tendon... I popped the tendon back in place and taped the leg up, tried to isolate him the best I could in the pea brooder box but there wasn't much room and his siblings wouldn't leave him alone, checked back an hour later and it had popped back out... Repeated popping it back in place and bandaged it up again, this time moving him to the bantam brooder box hoping the little squirts would ignore him (and they did for the most part) this time the tendon stayed set in place... Giving him twice daily doses of vitamins and tonight (Sunday) I removed the bandage and he appears good to go, took him about an hour to figure out how to walk without the bandaged leg, but after that he is hopping around just as well as the others... So happy day so far but only time will tell if they all survive obviously...

Anyway that is the first clutch of many this season... I have 5 additional clutches in the incubator right now, and might have a few more depending on when my egg supply dries up for the season... Also have some guineafowl mixed in with the peas for the remaining clutches... Not a fan of how 'angry' guineafowl can be, but there is no shortage of ticks on the farm we just moved into and I hear they are tick vacuums, so I'm hoping they can help get that issue under control as I'm fully tired of picking ticks off me, my daughters and the other pets/animals...

More to follow, hopefully mostly good...

Clutch 2 - 4 Pea Eggs - 2 Guinea - In the Oven 5-30 - Due 6-26
Clutch 3 - 3 Pea Eggs - 1 Guinea - In the Oven 6-3 - Due 6-30
Clutch 4 - 5 Pea Eggs - 4 Guinea - In the Oven 6-4 - Due 7-1
Clutch 5 - 5 Pea Eggs - 1 Guinea - In the Oven 6-12 - Due 7-9
Clutch 6 - 4 Pea Eggs - 1 Guinea - In the Oven 6-20 - Due 7-17
Clutch 7 - 3 Pea Eggs - 3 Guinea - In the Oven 6-22 - Due 7-19

And last but not least, a short time lapse of the 2nd pea of Clutch 1 hatching...

http://tinypic.com/r/25u01eo/8

Congratulations
i waited for decades to get peafowl but i have always had other birds.

How do you mange lock downs with so many different hatch dates?

Guineas are great for tick control.

 

[zazouse]

Pleas share some of you pea-chick photos with us in the 2014 hatch or show off your peas thread on this forum, we love sharring photos

 

[MeepBeep]

How do you mange lock downs with so many different hatch dates?

The short of it I don't do a lock down, the lock down is mostly to keep humidity up and I work around that by alternative means...

First, I separate the clutch of eggs due to hatch into a little segregated area of the incubator 3 days before hatch so that I know what ones to stop turning and disturbing... Second I have a little humidifier inside the incubator, after every opening of the incubator to rotate the not-due eggs, I turn this humidifier on and close it back up, this will drive the humidity back up within a few minutes, I can easily get 90% humidity or greater if I desire... But, generally after each opening I let the humidity rise to between 60-70% and then unplug the humidifier and let the normal humidity water under the grate maintain until next opening...

Yes, the humidity for the 'not-due' eggs is a little high during the three day periods while others are hatching, but I have not seen any issues thus far with air sack size... I also candle all the eggs regularly to monitor progress since I'm incubating unconventionally...

Here is a picture of the incubator, just now as I went to rotate eggs, you can see three bantam eggs pipped and due today, while the next clutch of pea and guinea have been moved into the do not disturb zone as well...



I will take some pictures of the hatched pea chicks later and add those...

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

I may ask for your help, if my hatch later this week goes well. I have eggs in it that came from another member, and they could be bronze, bronze bs, bs split bronze, and maybe bronze split pied. Having never hatched bronze before, I'm wondering if there are any differences between IB and Bronze at hatch, and also between bs and bronze bs at hatch????

Bronze chicks looks a lot like india blue chicks, i only have splading bronze and they are easier to tell because they looks darker, regular bronze are harder to tell maybe someone with more experience can help us here, bs and bronze bs also looks similar when they hatch, i'm the worst when its comes to bs chicks

, last year i hatched an opal bs chick and i thought it was a bronze bs hen until she reached 8 months old when i discovered its an opal bs hen

These are spalding bronze chick(low%) with spalding chick low % also, the younger one is the bronze:


Spalding bronze chick

this is also spalding bronze chick with more green blood


By the way, i bought a new mini studio to get better pictures that can shows the real colors for the peachicks

Good luck with your eggs!

 

[nurse1]

How do the light yello/peachy coloured ones turn out as they get older? Do they get darker ? I just wonder because I have never seen light ones before, except the completely white ones. This is my first year with peafowl, and my 3 year old female Jewel just laid her 4th egg today

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

How do the light yello/peachy coloured ones turn out as they get older? Do they get darker ? I just wonder because I have never seen light ones before, except the completely white ones. This is my first year with peafowl, and my 3 year old female Jewel just laid her 4th egg today

They start to disappear slowly when the peafowl get older,

Here is some pictures for a bronze black shoulder life time:

2 days old


3 weeks old


3 months old(right)


6 months old

10 months old


And finally a breeder peacock




My peafowls usually loose their last few white patches between 12-15 months old.

 

[Momhunter]

I am so frustrated with hatching peas!!!
I have 95-100% hatch rate on my turkey but terrible on the peas. The eggs are gathered, stored, incubated all the same. I sold the first three weeks of pea eggs because we had a trip planned and were going to be gone for 2 weeks. Then I saved the next 2 weeks of eggs and started incubating. Then saved and set weekly. The first group I expected a lower hatch rate due to the age of eggs but I had 0 hatch from 18 eggs. The next set had 10 eggs, one infertile, one early quitter and the other 8 all looked like developing well. Candled again at lock down, could only see movement in 5, then only 2 hatched. I had 22 turkey eggs set at the same time. 1 infertile, one early quitter, and had 18 hatch. Can't figure out what is going on.
My incubator is a gqf sportsman cabinet only 1 year old, set at 99.5 and humidity running in lower 20s with no water in it and an auto turner. The hatcher is an older gqf hatcher that I run at 98.5-99 degrees and 70 humidity. These setting are off of the porter turkey website and have done great on my turkey eggs and was hoping to do well with the pea eggs but this is worse than last year.
I also incubate cortunix quail at the same time and they do well.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!'