Java Peahen with White feathers?

[Choctaw Valley Farm]

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Looks like you can order it thought Jeffers Livestock 1.800.533.3377 or www.jefferslivestock.com

 

[bdfive]

Thanks for the information of the Ultrakibble being available at Jeffers. I'll call them. I bought shrimp and mushrooms at Costco yesterday. I'm so thankful to Resolution for sharing his knowledge with us regarding caring for these wonderful birds. I'm grinning from ear to ear right now. I can just see the peas reaction when I set this salad in front of them. Not know what the heck it is they may even turn there nose up at it, haha!!! For the second time I've bought a bag of Mazuri Feed. They don't care for it now anymore then they did for the bag I bought probably last year. Nothing would make me happier then to see them gobble the ultrakibble up. How many of you are already feeding it? What about the forage cakes? Salad? Anyone else going to try them? I'm assuming the India Blue would be better off receiving the same attention but doubt they'll get as much. I will use the above for the 75% Green birds. I'm going to try it all and hope that vivid yellow/gold comes back into their faces as well as them being healthier.

 

[Resolution]

As you've already paid for the Mazuri kibble- you may want to soak it to get them to eat it- mix the kibbles into canned cranberry sauce or low sugar canned fruit salad. This will soften it up and make it more attractive to eat. But try to remember, birds run a clean engine. Keep them hungry. More food does not make them more healthy. Try and limit their intake and when you feed a management food - small portions. A bird's crop (unless its a ratite or waterfowl) can only fit about five tablespoons of food (tops) at any one time and really- that's too much. Soft Pellets and Crumbles disintegrate in moisture . Consequently, the birds have to consume copious amounts of pellet to feel satiated- and of course there isn't much nutrition (think cheerios) available in that feed. {But what if my birds look famished?} _ i hear that a lot ( especially with poultry farmers). So much of this has to do with behavioral enrichment. They are bored and so they eat. They likely have a fat layer on their bodies that would actually protect them from starvation for days. Also, it takes three to five days for the birds to actually digest thoroughly what's being ingested.
Behavioral enrichment- {how can I possibly afford that?} Dry leaves - store as many in contractor bags as humanly possible. Free pumpkins- windblown apples- bury these (after a bit of gouging and cutting so the birds can work at getting into them on their own). This is affordable. Foragecakes are a winner too but they are expensive. One lasts a flock of peafowl for three maybe five weeks- cut them up and hide them -about the aviary- but in a no tip bowl -pre soak a corner- but that's for those that can afford them. Another behavioral enrichment tool is the use of foraging tables. Place old tables ( you can put inexpensive walmart no slip plastic table cloth over them) throughout the aviaries ( especially since dancing season is over about now). Have the kids help by making perimeters "walls " on each table- so nothing can roll off the table. I use firewood, rocks and bricks. Fill with dry leaves or clean straw- don't use hay as it molds- This is now a foraging table. When you put out management foods this is where it goes. And move it from one table to another- every few days. Make sure the management food is difficult to get at. I wrote about the frozen fibre cornucopia. Ceramic planters filled with dollar store cereal and the contents of dollar store bottles of spice mixed up together- these are behavioral enrichment tools- but put clean playground sand or clean potters soil and or leaf litter on top of the food stuffs so the birds have to actually think and use their natural tools to extract what's in that ceramic pot. So this is an example of behavioral enrichment.

To be clear, it's not about feeding the birds- not to fill them because they are hungry- but rather to encourage them to do as nature intends- search for food- use their brains- cooperate together as a social unit to discover food larders.

Try and envision a flock of wild peafowl. They'll forage over a wide territory picking up two and half teaspoons of drupes ( think whole peppercorns) three and half tablespoons of leaf buds ( think diced kale moistened in dark red fruit juice_antioxidant rich_ )- four froglets and a dragonfly ( five steamed shrimp in the shell powdered in turmeric)- that's the entire intake of a single bird before the mid-day siesta ( from whenever they've dried off their nocturnal perch and sailed to the ground to the heat of the day when they take rest in a sand pit on the river).
The rest of their day they gorge at a termite nest, some snake eggs a few days from hatching and new leaves from a bamboo grove. That's a huge day naturally and this might only happen twice a week.

Here's where a high quality kibble comes in handy as it's high in protein, and loaded with micro-nutrients and so on. For those of you that can't find or afford this- look around for a white fish and sweet potato dogfood -use this as a supplement in scratch grain and feed out cooked shrimp in the shell and walnuts, kale, cooked sweet potato as often as you can- but remove soy as soon as you can.

 

[bdfive]

Resolution, I'm on the move....have company coming for the weekend and need to get the guest house in order from last group of family. Don't we always wait until the last minute, LOL!!! Quick question...is there any feed to mix the ultrakibble in without soy? Also problem with only giving the peafowl small portions of feed and not leaving it out for them to eat whenever is the dominate birds will eat it all with those at the bottom of pecking order going hungry. I don't have time to monitor every feeding. Thanks.

 

[Resolution]

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Yes. I'm procrastinating once again... Scratch grain shouldn't have any soy in it. That's the bulk you mix into the kibble. Having at least two separate foraging/feeding tables separated from one another at opposite ends of an enclosure is how you can insure every bird gets enough feed. A big pumpkin or hammered out a bit- exposing guts- is a fine way to insure everyone gets plenty too. This time of year I'll actually use the pumpkin halves as the feeders- gives me some time to sterilize those dishes and gives the birds something to do as well.

 

[Tracydr]

I was thinking about getting greens when I move back t the country. I love having free range peafowl and have had them for twenty years, until the past six years when I've lived in the city. I'm glad I read this thread. I'll stick to my IBs for free ranging. I don't need wild, high flying birds that free range for fifteen miles everyday!

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[bdfive]

LOL, good post Tracydr. Hope you get back to the country soon. I'd be a lost soul without my peafowl. My plan was to raise Green chicks, spoiling them rotten so they could be free ranged but guess I've learned that isn't the way it works. I can trust my 75% Green to stay near by but they do roam off to the neighbors properties. Sometimes they come back, sometimes I have to round them up and lead them home with food. They fly so well that if they were frightened they may land and be lost not finding their way home. Due to drought and having more then the usual amount of predators I penned them a few months ago and now don't want to loose them so penned they stay. I believe 50% Green would be a safe free range bird. I'm in AWE everytime I'm in the pen looking at my 75% boys that are a year and a half now. They are sooooooooooooooo beautiful. My IB's are free ranging and could care less about wondering off. Not so during breeding season...they will go elsewhere to try to hide a nest.

 

[Resolution]

Studying the photos of this bird when she was younger a bit closer- I also think perhaps she is of hybrid ancestry with cristatus the shape of her skull - something about her reminds me of one of these hybrids people produce attempting to reach a colour mutation in a wild species- using a mutation of cristatus - the White Emerald is a good example- but I read about people constantly increasing the % of green blood in all sorts of lineages.

 

[bdfive]

The peahen in the pictures isn't mine....I didn't post any of her but it wouldn't surprise me if she were a high high percentage even tho the seller assures me she is full blood. I'll try to get some pictures of her soon.

I've bought some of the ingredients for the Green peafowl salad but haven't found all of them. Will be going to the recipe, copy/paste and print so I'll have it handy when I go to the store. We've been busy with overnight company for last several days. They left today after we drove to San Antonio for Dim Sum. The Golden Wok Chinese restaurant was packed. We had to wait 30 minutes to be seated.

 

[bdfive]

Resolution, I have a question. Have everything but the pickling spice so just about ready to make the salad for Green Peafowl. Raw beets or cooked? Thanks much!!

75%Cooked Sweet Potato cubed with skin

10% Cooked Unhulled Brown Rice
It's up to you to figure out what you can afford so far as proportions of the following:

Raw Cultivated Mushrooms
Cooked Shrimp or Prawns and/or Crayfish in the shell cut into small pieces
Whole Heads of Kale
Cubed Beets
Walnuts ( just as topping don't break the bank)
a whole jar of pickling spice