to leave or take them?

[syble]

After discussing with you fine folks about my failure to hatch the peafowl eggs i had gotten last year, it was suggested to set them under something to start them at the very least. so this year the same gentleman gave me 5 more eggs and I put them under a dedicated turkey hen. its a week in and she has 3 actively growing eggs, 1 that did nothing, and one that started but has a blood ring now. I was thinking i would just leave them with her the entire incubation time, but should i pull them just prior to hatch? or after they hatch, or is she safe to keep them for a bit?

 

[coleridgedane]

I'm also interested as I have 3 eggs under a game hen that are due to hatch next Tuesday. Her nest is 3' off the ground & I'm afraid they'll be injured once they hatch.

I'm thinking it would be best to take them as soon as all hatch, if they hatch, and move them to a brooder.

Any advise?

 

[syble]

my girls on ground so no worries there lol. thought for sure there would be some advice on this?

 

[Yoda]

The peachicks hatch and it takes a few days for them to walk. Set up a brooder and after the eggs hatch. take the chicks and place in the brooder. You will see the chicks under the birds.

 

[NateinFL]

I'm also interested as I have 3 eggs under a game hen that are due to hatch next Tuesday. Her nest is 3' off the ground & I'm afraid they'll be injured once they hatch.
I'm thinking it would be best to take them as soon as all hatch, if they hatch, and move them to a brooder.
Any advise?

My hen had hers 6' off the ground and they hopped down just fine after hatching.

 

[syble]

Just an update. I let my blue slate turkey hen set and used her to incubate the peafowl eggs. I had planned to pull them near the end and hatch them in the house, but i must have calculated wrong cause each time i went to grab the eggs i found freshly hatched chicks lol.
I had 5 eggs shipped to me from a friend, 3 started to grow, 2 hatched, both india blues i think? then i picked up a few more mixed eggs that hatched today, looks like 3 black shoulders and one blue. the 2 older chicks have been brooded for about 2 weeks now and doing well, the other 4 will be sent to the brooder tomorrow. is that too much of an age gap to brood them together?

Also in both cases the eggs came from mixed pens containing both blues and black shoulders (the first batch had pieds and whites too). is there any way to visually tell if they carry either india blue or blackshoulder? the one from the first hatch has a few white wing feathers, is that normal or is he a pied carrier? and at what age can i hope to guess sex on these guys? Sorry for all the newbie questions, you guys have been great!

 

[syble]

bump?

 

[Kedreeva]

. is that too much of an age gap to brood them together?

Also in both cases the eggs came from mixed pens containing both blues and black shoulders (the first batch had pieds and whites too). is there any way to visually tell if they carry either india blue or blackshoulder? the one from the first hatch has a few white wing feathers, is that normal or is he a pied carrier? and at what age can i hope to guess sex on these guys? Sorry for all the newbie questions, you guys have been great!

For the brooding, probably not but you should keep an eye on them when putting them together. Even if they are the same age they can have problems.

India blue isn't a color, it's a species name. So your whites and pieds ARE India blue whites and india blue pieds. If they were another color (let's say opal, my favorite) they would be called opal pieds, but they'd still be India blue peafowl (as opposed to java green). If you bred a white to anything other than a white, you'd get a blue bird (with white flights) unless it's carrying the blackshoulder gene and you bred it to a blackshoulder, in which case you'd get blackshoulder chicks with white flights. The one with white flights probably means that he is split to white or split to pied (more likely split to white, as split to pied somethings doesn't show white flights). There's no way to tell visually that the birds carry the solid wing genes, that's something you'd discover through breeding.

You should be able to tell the gender of the birds by around 3 months except for the white, which we can probably tell you by about 6 months if you can get us a picture of its tail feathers from behind, fanned (not the train feathers, the actual tail feathers).

 

[syble]

Thanks for the direction. I had to put them together as i'm limited space at the moment, but I've been watching them closely and introduced them slowly. So far everything is doing fine it looks like. There aren't any whites here i don't think. the first 2 look like blues with white wing tips, the newest 4 are 3 black shoulders and 1 solid blue. I'll try and take a photo or two to show them off.

I love the look of opals and many other colors, one day I hope to be able to get some of those, but right now my budget is more um, basic? lol. I've lurked this forum for a long time drooling over everyone's pretty birds!

 

[Kedreeva]

Well, welcome!! We are always happy to have more people