Gizmo and how I'm not dead (pic heavy)

[AnimalsRmyLife]

Zaz told me not to disappear for a long time without warning and I said okay, but then promptly disappeared again without warning >_> I AM SORRY ZAZ.

Things have been pretty busy here. We are building new pea pens (we were supposed to have them built this summer but the rest of real life ambushed me) right now (8'x12' sheds with 32'x12 flight areas whoo! The plans are to have 4 of them, 1st one is almost done) and fixing stuff around the new house.

I just wanted to drop by and wave to you guys (I'll probably disappear for a while again) and quickly show off my imprint project, Gizmo. He's indoors over winter due to our winter crash landing before I was done with my 3-months imprinting, so he's in for a while longer. SO!

I brought Gizmo home in mid-August from the Indiana Wolf Creek swap. He was 6 days old.



Gizmo was very, very noisy when he was a baby (who am I kidding, Gizmo is still noisy) and the only thing that would get him to be quiet and sleep was snuggling in a frilly purple scarf in the crook of my throat.




Even when he got too big for the scarf to hold him up around my neck anymore, he still slept on it. Lydia, my room mate's orange tabby, was *fascinated* by him.



One of his favorite things to do is take rides in the car. He actually has his own car seat, which is a rubbermaid bin with a perch secured in the middle of it, and he sits on it and staaaaares out the window talking to all the cars we pass. We travel to visit my mom every tuesday for special dinners and movie watching (she SPOILS HIM :| she says things like "I can't believe you brought that stupid bird again" as she feeds him bits of shrimp and chicken and cranberries and other things she picked up JUST FOR HIM). One day, we made a very special trip two hours away to see my grandpa, and he sat on his shoulder nuzzling his cheek for almost four hours while everyone else cleaned.





Gizmo is a lot older now, and he has become quite the snuggler.







I'm also pretty sure Gizmo thinks he is a cat.



Gizmo has a large feeder of peafowl chow when he's in his pen or free-ranging the house, but in the evening when I make myself dinner, I make him a small bowl of things he can eat; vegetable bits, meat bits, whole-grain pasta, or sometimes a little bit of greek yogurt or cheese. His favorite is when I have my day off on the weekend, and I make him a bowl of hash browns, an over-easy egg, and a little bit of my toast's crust. He always makes a mess.



Gizmo has been very helpful in building the new pea pen.



Honestly he mostly just gets filthy and watches us work.



He's finally sleeping on his own at night. We carpeted the top of our tallest bookshelf, and we put him up there at night before bed.




He's a pretty good kid (when he's not making a mess or screaming or tripping people or jumping on me while I'm working). If it's not obvious, I'm a little in love. I'm looking forward to letting him out in the spring





If you want to see some videos of Gizmo being a house peacock, you can visit his youtube channel. My favorite is the Christmas one!

And that's the story of Gizmo and how I'm not dead.

Gizmo is adorable!! I loved watching your YouTube videos about him! And I can see why the Christmas one was your favorite. It was hilarious!!!

 

[casportpony]

Gotta luv him!

-Kathy

 

[muus]

I love this! I didn't keep Peep inside that long but watching those videos brought memories back of Peep at that age. I remember those cute noises he used to make a lot. Peep likes to beg for more petting too. When I walk into the pen he pecks my hand asking to be pet.
This is my Peep, he is turning 3.




How are your older imprinted peas doing? Are they still friendly and they haven't turned aggressive right? Blue Creek Farms wants to imprint a peachick but he is worried that when it grows up it will turn aggressive, so he is waiting to see if those of us with adult tame peas have issues with aggression.

I reed that imprinted peacocks they are very agressive in the reproduction season.

Another question I have is Why you cut the feathers of the tail? I think about not breaking anything....

 

[Kedreeva]

How are your older imprinted peas doing? Are they still friendly and they haven't turned aggressive right? Blue Creek Farms wants to imprint a peachick but he is worried that when it grows up it will turn aggressive, so he is waiting to see if those of us with adult tame peas have issues with aggression.

Oh my goodness, I remember when you were raising Peep and he was so tiny! He's grown so much, and what a handsome boy he is.

Well let's see... None of my peas (save Blu, who was attacked by a pea I no longer have because he WAS aggressive, and that one wasn't one of my imprints) have ever been injured by my other peas beyond having their crowns picked a little.

Osiris is my oldest imprint, and she'll be 4 this summer. Although she is "queen" of the pen, I don't ever see her being aggressive in a damaging way to the other peas. The most she does are things like chasing the others out of her space so she can eat first, but she doesn't pursue them after they have stepped to the side. Blu was her co-imprint, and his only moments of "aggression" also involve food in that he'll peck at anyone that gets in his space (except Osiris) when there are treats to be had, and if he's trying to hop somewhere (bear in mind he's the one with the bad leg) and someone is in his way, he'll peck at them (I think he rarely even connects when he does this, they mostly are already moving for him... I'm surprised how well everyone else just tolerates or "helps" Blu). Neither of them are aggressive toward humans at all, though Osiris is NOSY. Osiris DOES sometimes chase the chickens around, especially the roosters if they start fighting, but I don't think she's ever injured them; I think she just likes making them run.

Olev, who was a co-imprint with Joslin, my turkey, will be turning 2 this summer and shows no sign of aggression either. He tends to be pretty submissive toward Blu (despite Blu's handicap) which I found surprising. He's definitely submissive toward Osiris, he gives her a lot of space. These might both be due to the fact that he's young. I didn't work nearly as much with him as I did with Osiris and Blu, but when i bring hand treats out (like plain greek yogurt) he'll come up and take a few bites off the spoon.

Jade, the same age as Olev, was NOT an imprint, but she was kept with Osiris and what's super surprising about her is that she has picked up her "human" information from Osiris. When I come into the pen, Jade watches Osiris, and when Osiris comes right up to me, Jade comes right up to me. When Osiris comes to take treats from me, Jade takes treats from me. It's really bizarre, but great! She's the most aggressive of my birds, however; anyone new to the pen, she will run right up and fan and chase them around and I have to spend time separating her from pecking at them for the first day before she settles down. So take that information as you will!

So far, Gizmo is not aggressive toward people, but he IS aggressive toward cats and dogs. He chases the cats around the house (he doesn't attack them, though), and he's attacked the dog several times with flying ninja kicks when she goes to say hello to him with too much enthusiasm.

Gizmo does have "play mode" that randomly turns on, and it looks like the bird equivalent of a dog putting its front end down/splaying the front legs to say "chase/play time!". He will very suddenly tip his front end down and splay his wings and make a noise to get my attention, and when I stomp my foot at him like I'm going to chase him, he - for lack of a better word - BOUNCES around the room excitedly. He's not running, and he's not scared (neck feathers are all smooth and he makes no distress noises), he's just... in chase mode. So, I stomp/bounce after him for a few paces, and then I turn and play-stomp into my bedroom... and he chases me in, then crouches into "play mode" position. He'll go back and forth with me around the house like this for maybe five minutes before he gets tired of it and goes to a perch to wait for me.

He will also play with the on-a-string cat toys by "attacking" them. I'll be interested to see how all his behaviors translate to "adult" Gizmo behaviors.

 

[Kedreeva]

I reed that imprinted peacocks they are very agressive in the reproduction season.

Another question I have is Why you cut the feathers of the tail? I think about not breaking anything....

If you mean Gizmo, I clip the ends of his tail feathers (not the train feathers) because they get really ratty. He can't preen them very well around the diaper, so in the interest of keeping him as clean and healthy as possible, I'm keeping his tail groomed/clipped until he can be outdoors.

 

[MinxFox]

Thanks for the reply! That is good to hear that your birds are not being aggressive to you. A lady I have gotten a few of my peafowl from has a white peacock she keeps in a pen because she hand raised him and used to always put him on top of her head. When he grew up he would try to fly on top of her head so she had to pen him up so he wouldn't always try and fly onto her.

Some people say the peacocks are aggressive during breeding season but so far I think Peep doesn't see me as a threat to his territory. He sees me as a mate.

Peep likes to run around too like what you are describing. All of the peafowl do that sometimes, but when Peep was little I had fun running around with him outside when he would do that. I like watching him run around like that with a white peacock that is about the same age as him. They are silly!

What I think is really sweet about Peep is if you have some dirt on your hand or something he will pick it off for you. It is probably like preening and he is probably expecting me to return the favor. Peep pecks very gently, but Alto, who I did not hand raise, pecks very hard.

 

[Kedreeva]

Thanks for the reply! That is good to hear that your birds are not being aggressive to you. A lady I have gotten a few of my peafowl from has a white peacock she keeps in a pen because she hand raised him and used to always put him on top of her head. When he grew up he would try to fly on top of her head so she had to pen him up so he wouldn't always try and fly onto her.

What I think is really sweet about Peep is if you have some dirt on your hand or something he will pick it off for you. It is probably like preening and he is probably expecting me to return the favor. Peep pecks very gently, but Alto, who I did not hand raise, pecks very hard.

I was told I would have that problem (the jumping on me one) when I was training Osiris to jump up (or fly to) my arm, but I think since she was responding to a specific action from me (raising my arm and calling/motioning with a treat) that it wasn't a behavior she did at will, so it never became a problem. Now she prefers for me to walk to a perch so she can jump up near me instead of on me. With Gizmo, I more have him trained for picking up rather than him jumping on any part of me, and that's something I hope he keeps.

I'd have to agree with you on the pecking; of the ones that will get close enough to peck, Osiris (the most imprinted) pecks the gentlest. Gizmo will do as Peep does, and examine my hands/arms/whatever is closest and pick off stray particles... this is somewhat of a problem, as I have freckles and moles that he will repeatedly try to get off of me with more and more determination until I have to move.

Gizmo also tends to get "frantic" when I'm giving him treats, which makes him very grabby, because I've had to take away so many random things he finds or steals (shed feathers that are too big for him to swallow, one of my feeder mice he ninja-grabbed from my hand (he's allowed to eat the baby mice I give to him, but he'll grab any size mouse if he can while I have them out), that thing from my dinner plate I was going to eat, etc). He's not what I would consider aggressive (he's not attacking me) while doing this though, just grabby. If I do take it away from him, he doesn't fight me for it, he just sits back down to wait for another chance.

 

[casportpony]

Mine peck at my toes making it impossible for me to walk barefoot!

-Kathy

 

[Kedreeva]

Mine peck at my toes making it impossible for me to walk barefoot!

-Kathy

haha! We have to wear socks at least inside. Gizmo does the same thing

 

[zazouse]

My peas grew up around toes cause it has got to be freezing for me to wear shoes and then they are toe shoes.