2014 breeding season begins, post your results

[kuntrygirl]

I won't have any eggs until April, I think. :/

 

[zazouse]

i got my first eggs in april last year also but wonder if it will change HUM but these boys are HUMPS and HOLLERS,
HUMPS and HOLLERS
I did not see a hump or hear a holler till 3/ 15 of last year.

 

[MinxFox]

Mine have been making little calls but nothing like the real peacock call yet. Frosty was displaying a bit today which is rare to see. Peep has been sharing his food with Ice a lot lately. He is being a good boy to the peahens but I noticed he has been kicking and jumping at my peahen Damsel, who I suspect is his mother. I need to get those new pens finished.

I am not looking forward to putting up netting or buying netting either. It is also bittersweet splitting up my peafowl group. I know Alto will give Peep and Frosty a lot of grief once breeding season is in full swing, but I have really enjoyed watching all of them interact. I think I will do what some breeders do and put all my peafowl in one large pen when it is not the breeding season.

Peep is being nice to Shyanne. The two of them are in an arranged marriage. Peep wants to marry me, but I told him it wouldn't work out so he will have to settle with Shyanne, who he grew up with so he knows her really well and gets along with her. I am excited for this year but also I know I need to rush to finish things so the birds get settled in.

We put in the corner posts since these photos, but here are photos of the new pen outlines. This is an old pear tree that will be in one of the pens. I wanted to incorporate it because it has this perfect natural perching branch. I am worried about the tree because most of it is dead, but I think we can trim it up and it will be okay. I just hope the perch branch will be intact and that it won't die. I love it soo much!


This is the smaller pen. It is more square like.


This is the larger one, it goes almost to where my truck is parked.


The plan for these pens is to make them about the same height as my current pen or higher (15ft. or more) and to use coated wire to help hold up the netting. The plan is to drill holes in the wooden post and string the wire through it and then attach that to the corner posts of the pen.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Minx,remember when ordering netting to get the "Knotted" not 'Knitted",,knitted if torn will keep unraveling like a run in panty hose.Also allow yourself 1' of overhang on each side.The actual size of the net is when it's stretched. My netting over the palace is pulled somewhat but not tight. My overall pen dimension is 48'x48' so I bought a 50'x50' knotted 2" net and I think it helps the life of the net if not pulled so tight it's like a fiddle string.If you search e-bay for netting the seller from Pa is a great guy to work with. Look at possibly using 2 nets woven together instead of one large enough to cover the entire pen,especially if your pens are wide.Nets that are 15' wide are cheaper than 30' widths,comparing width times 2. Remember if you get ice like a few weeks ago your netting will need supported.I've seen many pens with just a single pole in the middle with no netting support between this pole and the outside walls of the pen.My poles are 10'apart and between 4 posts making a square there is an X between the posts crossing corner to corner aside from wires going around the square of posts,8 wires used total between 4 poles.

 

[Tatum hills]

What does everyone do to keep their free ranging peahens safe from predators during breeding season? Last year my girl made it to 26 days, then we left for 2 nights and the first night we were gone aha was taken by a fox we now have a huge covered pen for the chickens so I am wondering if I should lock up all the peas in there too until the girls nest, but I worry they might not like it and not nest at all. Any other suggestions? Thanks!

 

[DylansMom]

What does everyone do to keep their free ranging peahens safe from predators during breeding season? Last year my girl made it to 26 days, then we left for 2 nights and the first night we were gone aha was taken by a fox

we now have a huge covered pen for the chickens so I am wondering if I should lock up all the peas in there too until the girls nest, but I worry they might not like it and not nest at all. Any other suggestions? Thanks!

I'm afraid the only way to truly keep them safe is to not allow them to free range during the laying season. We lost every free ranging hen we ever had, now we lock them in during the breeding season. We even had one drown on her nest during a particularly nasty night of thunderstorms, the next day she was still on the eggs, but dead without a mark on her. We haven't lost any since we started to keep them penned

.

 

[Tatum hills]

Thanks! So they don't get too upset about being locked up at breeding season? I am building a large pen just for that but since I'd like the to free range for the rest of the year I was worried they might be unhappy about suddenly finding themselves in a pen. Do you then let the boys out after the girls are sitting on eggs? And how long do you wait after hatching before you let mums and chicks out? Thanks!


www.tatumhills.weebly.com

 

[DylansMom]

Well, I don't think they are all that thrilled, but we don't let any of them free range all the time. We have way too many males for the number of hens, so I have a lot of bachelors. For some reason we always have more boys hatch than girls and the demand for hens is greater, so we end up selling as many as we are willing to, and then we have a couple males left over. So our gender imbalance has been growing for years. We sort of play musical Peacocks here, we let a group out together during the day and then coax them in at dusk with treats. We do this for a week or 2 and then they will start resisting going in, at that point we switch to letting a different group out. With so many males we have to be careful who we let out with who, or there will be fighting. Penned hens seem to breed and lay just fine, however they are not nearly as likely to go broody in our experience. I make up for this by sneaking extra eggs under the ones who are willing to sit and by incubating. As soon as a hen starts to sit we will remove the male from the pen, otherwise he will continue to try to breed and I've had them jump on a sitting hen and break the eggs under her in the process. Moms can be let out when chicks are about 8 weeks, we do not let chicks out though, because of hawks and cats. Moms will not go far without them, and once the babies are too big to be cat or hawk food we will let them all out together. We are not all that isolated and we have several neighbors, so I have to keep my Peas on a pretty short leash. This is why I pen them all up at night, the more freedom they get the more they want and they start to push it by visiting neighbors and such.

 

[Tatum hills]

Thanks for all the info! I don't think we'd have the facilities to play musical peacocks here ... Though we have a time-share system for the chooks and the free ranging area but good to know they still lay once cooped up... We'll see how we go... The other option I was considering is to put a small pen around a hen once she is sitting in the paddock... Of course this is risky as we have to find her quickly but I can't think of a pen design that's easy to build around her, fox proof and let's the mom out... Ideas?


www.tatumhills.weebly.com

 

[DylansMom]

Back before we started to pen them up, the hens would drive us crazy laying eggs out in the open pasture. We had all kinds of sheds and run-ins and shelters and they would nest in the open. 100 degrees and sun beating down on them, Thunderstorms pouring rain on them etc..... We constructed what amounted to plywood teepees, just 2 wide flat pieces of wood held together in an A-frame shape, we would sneak out and put these over them after dark. They would generally leave the nest the next day and not come back, so we ended up giving up on the idea of building around them. If you come up with something that works I'll pay you for the blue prints!

They can be downright frustrating when it comes to things like that. When I lost that last one in the storm is when I finally decided I'd had enough. I have an 18 year-old cameo hen now, she's been here since she was 3 months, the oldest free range hen I ever had was 7 when something got her. It is really tough trying to make sure they get the quality of life they deserve and trying to keep them safe. I'm trying to come up with some ideas for very large aviary enclosures that will come off the back of our main barn and allow them room to fly and exercise during the times they are not free ranging.