INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Chaneys Ranch]

My Peacock has decided the geese are his new friends.
He still looks a bit rough his molt hasn't completed yet.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

My better boy tomatoes are all that made harvest. All of us here locally had terrible gardens this year. The corn that did come in was so poorly pollinated the cobs were nearly bare. Cornstalks were fed to the hogs, so at least something had use of it.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I guess I should be thankful.... we had great watermellon, great canteloupe, great pickling cucumbers, great tomatoes of all types (did 1/2 bushel of salsa on Monday), so-so zucchini, and prolific basil.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Selling 2 brush goats.
These boys are very friendly and great for clearing the woods. Wethers, Spanish/Boer cross. 5 yo. From Cedar Ponds in Michigan.

They follow you around like dogs - very people-friendly and enjoyable personalities.

Steeler if the black boy; Twix is the light colored.

If interested, please pm.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Selling 2 brush goats.
These boys are very friendly and great for clearing the woods. Wethers, Spanish/Boer cross. 5 yo. From Cedar Ponds in Michigan.

They follow you around like dogs - very people-friendly and enjoyable personalities.

Steeler if the black boy; Twix is the light colored.

If interested, please pm.

Adore them! If we had more housing up I would nab them in a heartbeat. Brush goats clear poison ivy, thorn bushes and will strip hawthorn trees bark down and kill them out. They eat goldenrod and several other allergen plants! Natures lawnmower and weed eater all in one. Wethers are gentle and calm like does, and perfect if you are not concerned about milking. Gorgeous pair too. Horns are not an issue if you are aware of them, and keep hands out of the horns. My buck and one doe are horned goats. Sometimes its more beneficial to have horns especially in a large pasture to help goats protect themselves against predators.

 

[ellymayRans]

My Peacock has decided the geese are his new friends. He still looks a bit rough his molt hasn't completed yet.

Such a good pic! Glad to see he has made friends!!

 

[Faraday40]

Here are some pics from yesterday.
The 1st 2 are the last of the chicks from DD's experiment. We didn't want the broody to go through depression, so we let her keep 2. They're 8 wks old & she still stays with them all day & even snuggles them on the roost. Because she's the top hen, they sleep on the highest roost, are 1st to get treats, & live a very privileged life. The rest of the flock cares for them as well. We may end up keeping them.

This is our mystery orp. We were expecting a mauve & got white. (She had the mauve colored chick fluff but the feathers grew in white.)


And a CCL doing ballet



Here's our eye candy, Brick. Not only is he "as dumb as a brick," but he's also short & heavy like one.


Gotta be alert & keep an eye on that shadow that's been following me around!

 

[Lengerich Farms]

My Peacock has decided the geese are his new friends. He still looks a bit rough his molt hasn't completed yet.

I've always wondered about peacocks..... Do they lay eggs regularly ? Are the eggs edible ? Or are they more of a colorful addition to your flock?

 

[Indyshent]

Ok. I'm on a hunt for turkeys. Anyone have any excess they are looking to sell?!?

It's that time of year for me that I have to make the move. I have 1 tom and 1 poult (hen) that are of different breeds and I do not want to move forward with breeding them. I prefer blue slate. I have midget white and a Royal palm (I believe). So....Anyone? I'd like to add atleast a common pair and any Toms anyone has to offer. Yes, I would be making them dinner. So obviously if that's an issue please don't take offense, however that's my plan.

There's a guy selling lavender (self blue) Palms in Middleton.

I'm not looking to sell, but I have an oddball assortment of types here. Only one who isn't going to make it past the holidays is the BBW jake "Princess" who's the typical BB sweetie, but they just don't live long enough, and I hate being so attached to him.

The RK in Bloomington has heritage breed turkeys, so ask ahead before you make the drive as to which they're carrying. $14/ea, but get slightly older poults. If I bought day-olds there, they always got sick right after coming here (might have been all the rain), but the older Spanish Black I bought are super-healthy and really came around without much effort in socializing them. Go for the ones that run away if you put your hand in. So far, I'm batting 100 on gender using that method. From that RK, I have two Black Spanish, one chocolate, one lavender/self-blue slate, one bronze (all girls). Black Spanish and chocolate have never been sick--incredibly healthy and sociable, no matter what was going here. Both of the baby Bourbons and the Palm died, but if you pick out some older poults when the temps are more stable, you shouldn't have a problem.

I have a Midget tom already (from racinchickens), and the Holland and Bourbon hens came from jchny2000 (Porter's originally). The Midget isn't sociable at all--despite extensive effort--but he's also not aggressive. He's topped out pretty small, which is what I was kinda looking for because I'm a "weirdie" (my daughter's term). I like little feed-efficient long-productive-lives turkeys (with a preference against pure white birds--come on, where's the color and variety!?), but I'm looking to select more for small size and tons of eggs (which is why I really wanted Palms to work out here). I don't have any big birds here (except Princess, of course)--> all of my big birds have self-destructed, and this is my first year with heritage breeds.


So, an unrelated but related question: How long does it take toms to figure out how to mate "properly"? Poor Major Tom's super happy to have ladies around, but all he seems to be doing is standing on them awkwardly. He's yet to properly "get down with his bad self". Anyone think he'll figure it out by spring?

 

[Indyshent]

I've always wondered about peacocks..... Do they lay eggs regularly ? Are the eggs edible ?
Or are they more of a colorful addition to your flock?

Peafowl are seasonal layers, so they'll start in the spring for a narrow window. @ellymayRans will have better info because she's had them a long time. They are a colorful addition to any flock, but you'l want to do a crapton of research on them, and they're likely illegal where you live. They're exotic... and SUPER LOUD when they feel like it. They don't have pretty trains of feathers all year-- just for the fertile period. Any video/audio you find on the Internet isn't going to do them justice in any respect, really because they're much more beautiful and loud in person.

Usefulness, in the usual sense: Peafowl haven't been selected like other fowl for production attributes (meat, eggs) so they're closer to their wild kin, than say, chickens. If Europe hadn't discovered the turkey, peafowl might have been selected for that honor long enough to really pump up those attributes, but alas, turkeys are much faster growing birds, and they're enough uglier that people don't have to feel bad about eating them (unless you're a weirdie like me). All that fancy breeding plumage (and the huge eggs--seriously, peafowl lay monstrous eggs for no bigger than they are) take a huge toll on their bodies, so they suck for production qualities. In veterinary terms, however, turkeys = big peafowl, which is really neat. The two species have a lot in common, but peafowl are prettier, smaller, and live a lot longer (like 35+ years to a turkey's max at 15).

On Fowl-As-Watchdogs: So, peafowl make good watchdogs and can make you extra money selling the babies (and you don't have to worry about people eating your fancy babies either). They're smarter than guineas (one of the other big watchdog fowl)--much, much, much smarter than guineas--so they're less likely to fire off alarm calls unnecessarily. If you want a watchdog that looks stunning on your lawn or in a tree, a peacock is a pretty good choice (provided your nearest neighbors are miles away), but if you want your waterways guarded, get geese and swans. Ducks are not geese or swans, so don't be tempted to get guard ducks because boy ducks are super quiet and you won't hear them screaming (it's like space in the Alien movies). Ganders are really loud (like creaky swingsets through a bullhorn), and they'll really pack a punch for intruders, too. Swans are such good deterrents that you might not even need to hear them screaming at intruders--because you'll hear the intruder swearing and clutching their broken long bones as he writhes around in the mud.

Eggs: Whenever anyone asks if an egg is edible, I laugh. Since when are bird eggs poisonous? Of course, you could eat them, but why would you want to when you can hatch the babies out and sell them for a lot more than that omelet could ever be worth to you?