INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Chaneys Ranch]

Guys, I am still thinking on peafowl this spring but want to go with chicks, or eggs even. Is anyone else still considering them? DH wants me to hatch eggs, but is ok with chicks too. He flat nixed the whole idea of adults, he wants us to be able to imprint on them. Sooo now I am looking again. I told him I want a flight pen, so when they cannot be out the have plenty of room. We are also looking into pheasant and the permit involved in keeping them..

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/108504528764462877739/posts

There's supposed to be a video too, but I don't see it showing up yet.

They all are adorable, but I especially love the little fuzzy striped EE chicks. : - )
I stole one of your photos to post.




oh what a cutie!

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

Guys, I am still thinking on peafowl this spring but want to go with chicks, or eggs even. Is anyone else still considering them? DH wants me to hatch eggs, but is ok with chicks too. He flat nixed the whole idea of adults, he wants us to be able to imprint on them. Sooo now I am looking again. I told him I want a flight pen, so when they cannot be out the have plenty of room. We are also looking into pheasant and the permit involved in keeping them..

I am not going to get any peafowl but last year I was thinking about it and decided not to.Pheasant are very pretty.I am sticking strictly to chickens for know, I am too busy to branch out into anything else for this year.Good luck finding some if you decide to get them....you could look on cragslist I have seen a lot on there in the past.

 

[itsjustme]

Guys, I am still thinking on peafowl this spring but want to go with chicks, or eggs even. Is anyone else still considering them? DH wants me to hatch eggs, but is ok with chicks too. He flat nixed the whole idea of adults, he wants us to be able to imprint on them. Sooo now I am looking again. I told him I want a flight pen, so when they cannot be out the have plenty of room. We are also looking into pheasant and the permit involved in keeping them..

I have 2 and love them. Everything I read about raising them terrified me. I finally just put my big girl britches on and went for it. I bought 2 a year later still have 2 so I done something right. Lol they are very finicky ( my females diva the male my kids call blue I call him drama.) Mine don't like snow and when I would feed they would fly from wherever they were grab me and flap until they were standing on my head. They still try to fly and grab me but I've learned to duck them without even stopping what I'm doing lol. I wouldn't attempt hatching my own but I'm new to incubating and the guy I got mine from says they are not easy. I've been on a waiting list wirh him for about 10 months for pied peachicks but even he's having issues getting them to hatch and he's been breeding for years. I'm just not confident that I can do it if he who has tons of experience is having trouble. But that's just my opinion. I think a flight pen is an awesome idea. I don't have one and had to go get my birds from my neighbors house 1/4 of a mile away and it wasn't easy herding them back home. They decided to cut through the woods which I quickly discovered was mostly thorn bushes and briar patches. Ok I feel like my story just made them sound horrible and scary but they really aren't. I believe chicken math applies to peafowl also. Like I said I can't wait to get more! But unfortunately I kinda have to

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote: DHs friend has a pair, but I can't seem to get him to give me a price for eggs. I've offered trades even.
I may resort to hatchery chicks in the spring if I don't find any by then. I am hard of hearing and most of my neighbors are pretty far, so the noise is no biggie to me.
Auctions concern me so I just won't go that route. Maybe a swap meet if I can make it to one.

 

[animallover2202]

Good and bad news good news I mowed the lawn for the first time and I found and caught 4 kitten there wild so it was a bit of a challenge hand caught 3 and caught 1 in a live trap bad news is I cant keep them but they will go to an animal shelter where they'll get tamed there shots and fixed good news about that is that they wont kill my chickens

 

[hogster160]

I read hogster's post before I read yours, which is better advice. I found the Purdue lab info, but didn't know about the ISPA paying for the tests!
If anyone would like to keep it for reference, here's the Purdue Diagnostic info: https://www.addl.purdue.edu/TestsFees/BySpecies.aspx

Also, the pdf form for egg testing that bradselig told us about is available at: http://www.four-h.purdue.edu/downloads/Poultry/T-12 Flyer With form.pdf

ISPA: http://www.inpoultry.org

Thanks for the ISPA link, I had no clue of any of it. I found the fee's for the diagnostics, but nothing stating that ISPA paid for it.

I talked with the family last night, so that they all understood the reality of the situation. It pretty daunting experience. Lots of information to sort through. Lots of feeling to sort through. We do want whats best for these girls. So I will be taking them to Purdue. To pay for the blood testing seems all fine and dandy, if I really wasn't sure this was mericks. But the ocular change in two of my birds really kind of sealed the deal for me. Is there anything else out there that will change the pupil of a chickens eye? I've had chickens for 5 1/2 months, some of you have years of chicken experience. I can only find information on mericks. Please if anyone knows of anything else, please advise.

Deb

 

[Too Fast]

I have been amazed how many people that have asked me that "How do you get eggs if you don't have a rooster?" question since they found out that we're going to keep chickens. I've been using a quote that I think I stole from someone on here to explain, "Just like how a woman produces an egg each month a hen produces one every 24-36 hours." Then they often ask if we plan to hatch any of the unfertilized eggs...

Amazing, isn't it?

 

[vickichicki]

You didn't miss nothing, glanced back through and noticed I really did not talk about the turkeys all that publically.

Momma turkey went broody, started with 7 eggs.. towards hatch time we were down to two. Lots of feathers in the cage so I think Tom turkey was maybe stealing them.
Well time passed and a little more time passed, she was still sitting on them. After a long thought I decided to buy a couple of chicks and replace the dud eggs with live chicks. I picked up two chicks, one RIR and one RIR mix from SallyinIndiana (adorable they are too).
So we crept in one night, pushed a rather angry mom off eggs and popped the two chicks in there. I was very worried she might end up killing them, but at this point she was going to brood herself to death. She has been sitting for well over a month.
Next day... Trilling content mother with two live chicks under her.
Oh happy days

I still have the roosters. No response from Craigslist on those. Going to take the add off and put them on the BTS section here. Maybe I will have more luck.

Edited to add...

For everyone information... dud eggs can be highly explosive and they produce one of the most putrid smells I have ever in my entire life smelt

 

[vickichicki]

Guys, I am still thinking on peafowl this spring but want to go with chicks, or eggs even. Is anyone else still considering them? DH wants me to hatch eggs, but is ok with chicks too. He flat nixed the whole idea of adults, he wants us to be able to imprint on them. Sooo now I am looking again. I told him I want a flight pen, so when they cannot be out the have plenty of room. We are also looking into pheasant and the permit involved in keeping them..

I would love some peafowl.

Probably not going to happen until we move to a house with a bigger yard.

I did just get some news about someone selling their entire flock. Apparently they have 30 chickens total. DH said we could house them. I am not so sure of that. I know that there are sets of Hen, rooster and chicks. Unsure of breeds.
I will let everyone know when I hear more about that.