Jungle Fowl

[RobG7aChattTN]

Whether it's this year or the next, the good thing is that all 4 species of junglefowl are attainable if you know where to look (e.g. softbills for sale).

Yes...there's a nice pair of proven breeder Greens available for $750 in San Diego. He doesn't ship though.

 

[Darrell Cunningham]

I'm still in the "research phase". I've decided that I may as well build the cage first to make sure that I have separate, heated quarters far away from any of my current chickens that is completely inaccessible to any wild birds. I haven't decided yet whether it would be best to try and find adult birds or start with chicks but a lot of that might be determined by availability. The advantage of adult birds would be having fertile birds right away (apparently they take 4 years to reach maturity) and the advantage of starting with chicks is that you get birds that, while probably not exactly "tame" they hopefully at least do not panic when they are handled...which might be necessary if Artificial Insemination is the only way to keep them disease free. I'm not sure if freshly hatched chicks raised along side the Green Junglefowl would be "clean" enough or if merely hatching in an incubator that had hatched so many chicken eggs or any diseases that might be passed on through the egg might endanger the Junglefowl. I might be reading too much into things but there may be diseases carried by domestic chickens that they are totally immune to that might negatively affect the Junglefowl. On top of that, the idea of raising a small flock of poultry side by side for four years on a diet of mealworms, dubia roaches, nuts, berries, krill and seeds seems like a lot of wasted money. Besides, if I'm going to go to all that effort I may as well try to raise some pure Green Junglefowl. I did contact one seller that did not want to sell to someone who would be attempting to create hybrids. I wouldn't want to do that with Red Junglefowl but I don't see any chance that there would ever be the same problem with creating a bird that looked like almost pure Green Junglefowl but that was not pure. It seems that there are actually already quite a few Indonesian breeds that were derived using Bekisars but they have been bread for a lot of reasons other than trying to get them to look like Green Junglefowl. Instead it seems that most of the focus has been on their crow. Anyhow, it looks like creating a bunch of Bekisars (but with domestic chickens, not Red Junglefowl) shouldn't be all that difficult. Crossing those back to pure domestics should be fairly easy. Getting fertile females seems to be the hard part. If it doesn't happen in that generation then you have to keep at it over successive generations with lower percent Junglefowl males until you get fertile females. Hopefully a Bekisar doesn't take 4 years to reach sexual maturity. Then who knows how many generations of inbreeding and line breeding to see some Green Junglefowl traits (especially that comb). Honestly my biggest concern is my wife...let's say "not supporting" my efforts. I already don't have time to focus on building a proper enclosure because she has me building a barn this summer and various other projects.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

I’ve got my Greys, Greens and Ceylons now. So far they seem to be doing well and actually seem more tame that I expected. Initially I was surprised that they Greys were more wild than the Greens but over time it seems like the Greens are almost as jumpy as they were when I got them but the Greys seem much more relaxed. The Ceylons I’ve had for the shortest period of time but they aren’t too wild. They are still easily spooked but will eat in front of me...something the Greens won’t do and they Greys aren’t keen to do. One of the things that I like to feed the Junglefowl is live dubia roaches. Basically they are giant cockroaches. The males have wings but can’t fly and you can put either males or females in a bowl with slick sides and they can’t climb out. So...you can put them in a bowl just leave them. It is not uncommon to find a bunch or dubias still in the bowl the next day with the Greens. The Greys and Ceylon eat them right away...and it seems more so with the Ceylons. They seem a little freaked out by them and relish them at the same time...stabbing them first a few times to disable them and then choking them down whole. I’ve tried to use my phone to take a video of the Greens eating. The plan was to leave my phone shooting video while I was gone since they won’t eat in front of me. Instead I got a video of them creeping around looking curiously at the phone. So...I’ve now left an empty cell phone case there for them to get used to.

 

[Darrell Cunningham]

I’ve got my Greys, Greens and Ceylons now. So far they seem to be doing well and actually seem more tame that I expected. Initially I was surprised that they Greys were more wild than the Greens but over time it seems like the Greens are almost as jumpy as they were when I got them but the Greys seem much more relaxed. The Ceylons I’ve had for the shortest period of time but they aren’t too wild. They are still easily spooked but will eat in front of me...something the Greens won’t do and they Greys aren’t keen to do. One of the things that I like to feed the Junglefowl is live dubia roaches. Basically they are giant cockroaches. The males have wings but can’t fly and you can put either males or females in a bowl with slick sides and they can’t climb out. So...you can put them in a bowl just leave them. It is not uncommon to find a bunch or dubias still in the bowl the next day with the Greens. The Greys and Ceylon eat them right away...and it seems more so with the Ceylons. They seem a little freaked out by them and relish them at the same time...stabbing them first a few times to disable them and then choking them down whole. I’ve tried to use my phone to take a video of the Greens eating. The plan was to leave my phone shooting video while I was gone since they won’t eat in front of me. Instead I got a video of them creeping around looking curiously at the phone. So...I’ve now left an empty cell phone case there for them to get used to.

Don’t you have any eggs for sale off the green or can you tell me where to get them from thanks .

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

Don’t you have any eggs for sale off the green or can you tell me where to get them from thanks .

I haven’t gotten any eggs yet. I haven’t heard the male crow yet so he might not be mature enough. I haven’t seen anyone sell eggs though. They only lay 6-20 per year and they tend to be hard to hatch and very hard to raise up. Everyone that I’ve seen selling them seem to sell started chicks. Besides, you’d probably have to pay $100/egg and you wouldn’t want to risk that money with all the problems associated with shipped eggs.

 

[Darrell Cunningham]

Yea i

I haven’t gotten any eggs yet. I haven’t heard the male crow yet so he might not be mature enough. I haven’t seen anyone sell eggs though. They only lay 6-20 per year and they tend to be hard to hatch and very hard to raise up. Everyone that I’ve seen selling them seem to sell started chicks. Besides, you’d probably have to pay $100/egg and you wouldn’t want to risk that money with all the problems associated with shipped egggs. Yea I found a site online that sells them for 35.00 an egg but you have to buy 20 for them to ship . A lot of money but if you got a make and female if they survive you’ve gotten your money back .

 

[Darrell Cunningham]

Who sold you yours I live in Mississippi

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

They usually have ads on Softbillsforsale.com.
Mine were from Stuart Denton in Florida.

 

[Darrell Cunningham]

Thank you .

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

I’d be VERY suspicious of anyone selling Green Jungle Fowl eggs for $35/egg...and how many would they have to have to be able to sell 20 at a time?!?! Since started chicks sell for $450/pair you’d think anyone would rather hatch them out than sell the eggs for $35 each.