Thank you Gerald. I have been actively hunting through the UPA Breeders web sites, and I keep coming back to B-A-B's- so not knowing anything about them previously, I'm gratified to have you recommend them. I understand the Spaldings (or Green crosses) are not cold tolerant, and am ready to deal with that- having had heated perches in the past, I can do that again. My Bird house is good and solid and freshly expanded. My new concern though- I have read that the greens are considerably "flightier". Is that true? My birds are real pets, around us and the dogs - and free ranging during the day,then coming in to be locked up at night. Possibly Greens/Spaldings etc...being more skittish would not be conducive for free ranging? Any thoughts or opinions would be welcome.
Spaldings 50/50 usually free range very well and tolerate the cold very well. The higher up you go on the purity scale is when you normally run into issues, Greens especially the males will roam and really dont free range well, some have tried and it works up until they are of breeding age and then they are prone to disappear. Breeding age green males can be very aggressive and care must be taken during the season to seperate males and reduce visuals between the pens as they will destroy themselves as well the pens trying to get at each other. Green hens are known to not play well with other hens and can be obsessive over their males so some might have to be kept in pairs probably no more than a trio per pen. Ive known a few people who have tamed their greens from a chick and hand raised them and swear the bird would never leave but, it usually turns out like the kids parakeet. Bottom line is your gonna need more when it comes to Green peafowl and I cant remember if you stated how much experience you have with peas but if its low, I would start with IB's and Spaldings and then move to the purer birds if thats what you end up liking, it could save you money in the end. It really hurts when one of the crazy greens fly up and break their neck, it just happened to me, ouch!!.
Gerald Barker