Hey everyone I miss you all so much! I have been busy with all sorts of things and I haven't really felt like getting on BYC much, but I thought I would give you all an update on the Imperator peachick (Raptor) as well as the younger peachick that I hatched out.
Raptor the Imperator peachick is doing great! He is growing a nice crest and has pretty golden-green feathers coming in. He is very easily comparable to Peep when it comes to how tame and imprinted he is. He follows me around closely and he is very alert - probably more so than an India Blue. When we slightly crack 1 blind to look out and see how he is doing in the outside peachick pen, he notices even that tiny movement and starts crying for me. Just this week he has been moved to the outside peachick pen permanently and the smaller peachick is in with him. Previously they were out there during the daytime and came in at night, but now they spend the night out there too. Similarly to Peep, Raptor enjoys displaying at my feet. One thing he does do that I have never seen/heard before is he will start displaying and run over to my feet trying to call like a peacock! It is a very shrill call and the first time I heard it I was worried I had stepped on him but no it is just his attempt at calling like an adult. Raptor is imprinted to me so it is easy for me to pick him up and put him back into the pen, but evidently he makes a lot of fuss when someone else tries to put him back in his pen. I was gone all of last week and my Dad told me that he tried all of the things I do to pick up Raptor such as tapping the ground and then picking him up but my Dad said it didn't work and he spent around 45 minutes trying to pick him up. So while I see him as very tame, it seems that he is not so tame for other people.
The other peachick I have is about half the size of Raptor. This peachick is the one that we spent a long time fixing his legs and toes so that he could finally walk properly. While this peachick is imprinted to me, he is not nearly as strongly imprinted to me as Raptor. We figure this peachick was accidently imprinted to our dog. Anyways this peachick shivers sometimes when you get near him and then calms down when you reach out and pet him. He also shivers sometimes when Raptor gets close to him and I do not blame him because Raptor probably is pretty scary. The two peachicks don't really hang out together they just do their own thing. While I was gone the younger peachick got the very end of his toe hurt somehow and no one was able to tell me what happened. It is black looking but I think that is dried blood. The nail is sideways a bit. I am really worried that after all that hard work making his toes perfect one of his toes will be permanently messed up on the very end. I have no idea what could have happened but today someone said perhaps the dog was able to grab at his toe by standing up on her back legs and biting at him from under the wire floor. I think this peachick is going to have a white throat latch. He is definitely either split to white or split to pied. I will probably sell him once he is maybe half grown. He is a sweet little peachick but he is a bit of a scaredy cat.
As for the dog she doesn't really care about Raptor now that he is bigger. She is more interested in the smaller peachick. I have let Raptor out supervised multiple times with the dog out and she will look at him and then go right back to watching the little peachick in the pen. She does get a bit excited if Raptor flaps and jumps around, but now just by telling the dog "NO" she listens. For the most part she has been extremely well behaved around Raptor and has not tried biting at him. I doubt she would be that nice to the other peachick but at least I feel like some progress has been made.
I will have to get some pictures of both peachicks today. I probably will take them out after I have something to eat.
Raptor the Imperator peachick is doing great! He is growing a nice crest and has pretty golden-green feathers coming in. He is very easily comparable to Peep when it comes to how tame and imprinted he is. He follows me around closely and he is very alert - probably more so than an India Blue. When we slightly crack 1 blind to look out and see how he is doing in the outside peachick pen, he notices even that tiny movement and starts crying for me. Just this week he has been moved to the outside peachick pen permanently and the smaller peachick is in with him. Previously they were out there during the daytime and came in at night, but now they spend the night out there too. Similarly to Peep, Raptor enjoys displaying at my feet. One thing he does do that I have never seen/heard before is he will start displaying and run over to my feet trying to call like a peacock! It is a very shrill call and the first time I heard it I was worried I had stepped on him but no it is just his attempt at calling like an adult. Raptor is imprinted to me so it is easy for me to pick him up and put him back into the pen, but evidently he makes a lot of fuss when someone else tries to put him back in his pen. I was gone all of last week and my Dad told me that he tried all of the things I do to pick up Raptor such as tapping the ground and then picking him up but my Dad said it didn't work and he spent around 45 minutes trying to pick him up. So while I see him as very tame, it seems that he is not so tame for other people.
The other peachick I have is about half the size of Raptor. This peachick is the one that we spent a long time fixing his legs and toes so that he could finally walk properly. While this peachick is imprinted to me, he is not nearly as strongly imprinted to me as Raptor. We figure this peachick was accidently imprinted to our dog. Anyways this peachick shivers sometimes when you get near him and then calms down when you reach out and pet him. He also shivers sometimes when Raptor gets close to him and I do not blame him because Raptor probably is pretty scary. The two peachicks don't really hang out together they just do their own thing. While I was gone the younger peachick got the very end of his toe hurt somehow and no one was able to tell me what happened. It is black looking but I think that is dried blood. The nail is sideways a bit. I am really worried that after all that hard work making his toes perfect one of his toes will be permanently messed up on the very end. I have no idea what could have happened but today someone said perhaps the dog was able to grab at his toe by standing up on her back legs and biting at him from under the wire floor. I think this peachick is going to have a white throat latch. He is definitely either split to white or split to pied. I will probably sell him once he is maybe half grown. He is a sweet little peachick but he is a bit of a scaredy cat.
As for the dog she doesn't really care about Raptor now that he is bigger. She is more interested in the smaller peachick. I have let Raptor out supervised multiple times with the dog out and she will look at him and then go right back to watching the little peachick in the pen. She does get a bit excited if Raptor flaps and jumps around, but now just by telling the dog "NO" she listens. For the most part she has been extremely well behaved around Raptor and has not tried biting at him. I doubt she would be that nice to the other peachick but at least I feel like some progress has been made.
I will have to get some pictures of both peachicks today. I probably will take them out after I have something to eat.
