2014 breeding season begins, post your results

[casportpony]

Have you been monitoring weight loss on the pea eggs? Note that I am a complete novice when it come to incubating anything, but I did learn a lot about hatchability in *my* very dry environment by weighing eggs when they were laid, set, day 7, day 14, day 21 and day 24.

-Kathy

 

[MeepBeep]

So far I have been having good luck with weekly (give or take) collected pea eggs... The only obvious difference from you is my humidity levels in the incubator are higher... I average give or take 35-45%, but since I have mixed batch eggs in my incubator there is faux lock downs where I bump the humidity up to 65-80% for a few days depending on the hatch, so my unhatched eggs get a few days of high humidity during their incubation, and an overall higher humidity...

 

[Momhunter]

Have you been monitoring weight loss on the pea eggs? Note that I am a complete novice when it come to incubating anything, but I did learn a lot about hatchability in *my* very dry environment by weighing eggs when they were laid, set, day 7, day 14, day 21 and day 24.

-Kathy

I haven't been weighing but going by the change in air cell size. Last year I incubated at 40 something humidity and was increasing to around 70 at lockdown all in the sportsman. Didn't have great hatch rates and had eggs not loosing enough weight making the air cells be to small and fat heavy chicks with large yolk bellies when hatched. That's why I purchased the separate hatcher this year.
Started turkey this year at same temp and humidity then followed advice on here and the porters web site to lower temp from 100 to 99.5 and lower humidity during incubation. Which did great for the turkeys. I have just been going by air cell enlargement on both the turkey and peafowl eggs and they look like they are on track.

 

[rockyspringsfarm]

I have a question for the experienced peafowl breeders on this list.....I have a pen of India Blue Blackshoulders....male is 5 years old....three hens.....2 are 3 year olds, and one is four years old. My problem is this.....this pen layed well in 2012 and 2013 seasons but have not laid the first egg this year with one exception...about March 1st one of the hens laid two or three eggs then nothing else. These birds have been in the same pen for 3 years under the same conditions....8 ft by 10 ft open front south facing shelter with attached 10 ft by 30 ft run. They are on a free choice Purina laying pellet....no changes in feed.. Nothing has changed at all on these birds. The male is displaying and talking in normal fashion. There has been no sickness in them. They have been wormed. They are alert and bright. Their next door peafowl neighbors are the same ones they've had for two years. I am at a loss by this turn of events, The Purple pen is laying fine as is the India Blue Pied pen.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this matter. Any suggestions as to what the problem might be would be very much appreciated.

 

[MinxFox]

My peas were laying well for a few years. This has been the first year I have been collecting all the eggs from them and I noticed one was laying soft shell eggs and the others wouldn't lay much. Then with help from people on here I found out they needed more calcium to make the eggs. Giving them things like oystershell gritt and crushed up egg shells helped compleately so that is what I would try doing. remember to save any egg shells from the eggs you use for cooking (or other eggs) and crush them up. if the peahens really need the calcium they will be eating the shell fragments like it is candy. for the oystershell gritt you should be able to find it. I got mine from petsmart and it is for parrots but I wanted it because of the calcium content the bottle said it had, and the pieces are so small that it was easy to hide in their food. always mix the oystershell into their food. Hopefully that will do the trick.

 

[Birdrain92]

I know you can buy 50lb bags of oyster shells at D&B for about $20 I think. But I don't know if you guys have D&B like Idaho does.

 

[DylansMom]

I have a question for the experienced peafowl breeders on this list.....I have a pen of India Blue Blackshoulders....male is 5 years old....three hens.....2 are 3 year olds, and one is four years old. My problem is this.....this pen layed well in 2012 and 2013 seasons but have not laid the first egg this year with one exception...about March 1st one of the hens laid two or three eggs then nothing else. These birds have been in the same pen for 3 years under the same conditions....8 ft by 10 ft open front south facing shelter with attached 10 ft by 30 ft run. They are on a free choice Purina laying pellet....no changes in feed.. Nothing has changed at all on these birds. The male is displaying and talking in normal fashion. There has been no sickness in them. They have been wormed. They are alert and bright. Their next door peafowl neighbors are the same ones they've had for two years. I am at a loss by this turn of events, The Purple pen is laying fine as is the India Blue Pied pen.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this matter. Any suggestions as to what the problem might be would be very much appreciated.

This is starting to look like an "off" season for many of us. I am having more than my normal amount of irregular laying, late starters and soft shelled eggs. My birds are on layer feed and there is oyster shell mixed in as well as egg shells given as often as possible, it has not made any difference here. A soft shelled egg was laid yesterday. I have a friend locally who is having awful hatches and another who just started to get eggs from some of his hens about 2 weeks ago. I asked before if others were noticing anything unusual about this season and many replied that it is shaping up to be a poor year for hatching. The prevailing theory is the weather, harsh winter, cool spring, etc....... And for lack of a better explanation I will agree. My hatching is okay, but more clears than normal and more assisted hatching than is normal for my birds. If it is the weather, there is obviously not much any of us can do except be thankful for what we do get.

 

[AugeredIn]

there is obviously not much any of us can do except be thankful for what we do get.

Yep. Agreed.

 

[rockyspringsfarm]

Thanks everyone for the input....I hate to say it but at least I am not the only one having problems...This just caught me so off guard as this pen has been so dependable and when I could find no health issues and nothing else had changed I just simply did not know what to think. I will try adding the additional oyster shell.

 

[margaret8]

I'm starting to feel like I'm still in Calif 3 earthquakes in 30 min!!