my peacocks are 15 months old

[Exotics R Us]

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From where I'm sitting looks like the only BYC member confused is you, Minxfox has photos posted showing and telling you how old her birds were when photos were taken. And not everyone goes out to take pictures everytime their peafowl loses a feather or two.

Ricky

 

[MinxFox]

From what I have seen, peacocks mature very very differently. Some people have two year old peacocks that have a train that looks almost like a three year old's train, then some two year olds have a few eye feathers in their train. Here is a photo of Alto when he started shedding his train to grow in the three year old train, which is about the length of his tail now.

Alto had few sold green feathers, most were striped and he only had one small little eye feather. This is what Alto looked like when I first got him.

 

[clinton9]

Ricky,
Yes, you're right, I got confused when Deerman & members told me about I had mistook Alea's 2-year-old peacock Alto for a 1-year-old peacock.

When last month ago I asked Alea about Alto's date of hatching and she told me she did not know about Alto's date of hatching.

Only photoes will slove the problem the BYC members face in ageing the peacocks, regarding hatching season April to October.

Clinton.

 

[clinton9]

Members,
Thanks to Alea, I understood 1 & 2 year old peacocks have variable 1st Ad and 2nd Ad plumages, same as for immature seagulls (they have variable immature plumages, with advanced and regarded 1st-3rd year plumages)

There are 3 colours variablies in plumages of immature seagulls and IB peafowls, with "regarded", "average", "advanced" immature plumages.


Hi Deerman, Is this below correct ???

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April-hatched "Advanced" Florida 1-year-old peacock have many green feathers mixed with barred train feathers and 4+ eyed feathers.
Long train feathers, about 60cm.
May-hatched "Advanced" New York 1-year-old peacock have less green feathers, mixed with barred train feathers and 2+ eyed feathers.

April-hatched "Advanced" Florida 2-year-old peacock have fewer plain green train feathers, with 20+ eyed feathers & often mistaken for 3-year-old peacock. Longest train feathers, about 80cm
May-hatched "Advanced" New York 2-year-old peacock have more plain green train feathers with 10+ eyed feathers.

August-hatched "retarded" Florida 1-year-old peafowl have 6+ green train feathers in mostly barred feathers.
August-hatched "retarded" New York 1-year old peafowl have entirely barred train feathers and no green feathers in train. Longest train train feathers, about 40 cm

August-hatched "regarded" Florida 2-year-old peafowl have plain green train feathers with 3+ eyed feathers.
August-hatched "regarded" New York 2- year-old peafowl have entirely plain green train feathers. Longest train feathers, about 55cm
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I think Alto is a "Advanced" bird, regarding when he wore his 1st year plumage, his train had more green feathers than barred feathers and had one eyed feather, so after Alto had moulted into 2nd year plumage, his new train will have plain green feathers with 20+ eyed feathers, because Alea is very knowlegle in diet of peafowls and about peafowl husbandy.
Well fed 2 year old peacock grow more eyed feathers than poorly fed 2 year old peacock.

If you are not sure, why not go out to beach and look at immature seagulls and notice how variable the immature plumages are ???

2-year-old Herring gulls have both advanced and regarded immature plumages, with birds wearing "advanced" 2nd year immature plumage, look like adult Herring gulls, being grey & white, while "regarded" 2nd year immature plumage, look like 1st year plumage, being brown.

I am trying to fix this confusion the members were pluzzled about variable the peacocks"s 1st & 2nd year plumages are.

See the photoes below.

This is an early hatched "advanced" 2-year-old spalding peacock. Note he had about 50 eyed feathers in train feathers.
Do check for plain green train feathers against eyed feathers in train.
Alea's peacock Alto will be like this, by end of November, but proberly about 25-30 eyed feathers in train.

This is an early-hatched "average" 2-year-old IB peafowl, with entire green train, with 8 eyed feathers.

This is a late-hatched "retarded" 2-year-old IB peacock. Note some train feathers are barred and one eyed feather against mostly green train feathers.

This is early-hatched "advanced" 1-year-old IB peacock. Note many green train feathers and an one eyed feather against mostly barred train feathers. An eyed train feather is on left side of train, near rump.

Cheers

Clinton.

 

[MinxFox]

Okay, now I am getting confused...

Alto has already had his two year old train, that isn't what he is growing in right now. That is what he just shed and now he is growing in his three year old train which is about the length of his tail right now so as a two year old Alto wasn't very impressive. He only had one eye feather and looked nothing like that spalding peacock in the first picture with all the eye feathers.

This is him as a two year old around the very beginning of this spring:
http://i875.photobucket.com/albums/ab316/Maahes_2010/Pavonine/siamensis/preview.jpg

Notice the one small eye feather. That was his only eye feather.

As this summer came to an end, his feathers took on a more blue-green look as you can sort of see in his back feathers:

Then he started shedding all the train feathers and now looks like any regular adult peacock growing back their train feathers.

Sorry if I confused you, or maybe I am just confusing myself.

 

[clinton9]

Hi Alea,
I agree with you I got confused myseft too by 1 & 2 year old peacocks, because of variable 1st & 2nd adult plumages, and I had worked out this problem of labelling the plumages, by putted "advanced", "average" "retarded".
Deerman said these birds have variable plumages, from same one nest of eggs, hence some brothers are in advanced plumages from their brothers in their retarded plumages.

I looked at your photoes of Alto and I realised he had been wearing his "extra-retarded" 2nd year train & plumage early this year, and now again he have "extra retarded" shorter 3rd adult train which may either finished growing now or have 24 more days of growing until 20cm past the tip of tail feathers.
Alto is only peacock with "extra retarded plumages"
When he moult his still shorter 3rd adult train on August 2012, the new 4th adult train will be adult, but may be still shorter (about 100cm) than average 3-year-old peacocks.
Alto may been a late-hatched peachick that had hard time getting enough to eat, and put up with Dragon who bullied him & stopped him from feeding well. He may been fed not enough food when he was a juvenile & immature peacock during his first 12 month of life, with his growth and moults being very slow during wintertime and early springtime.

But peahens will not be interested in Alto until he is 3 year old, when 4th year train are fully grown on early 2013.
Most USA 2-year old peacocks usually breed for first time in their 2nd year plumages, but Alto will never breed for 1-2 next years.

Advanced 1-year-old peacock have 1-2 eyed feathers and more green feathers than barred feathers.
Average 1-year-old peacock have both green & barred feathers on train.
Retardrd 1-year-old peacock have more barred feathers than green feathers.

I'll look more in other photoes of more 1 & 2 years old IB peacocks, I'll post you more photoes.

Did you looked ay my drawing of green peacock heads in page 3 of "Buff and Red Buff Spalding/Spaulding Founder Flock" ???
The picture of green peafowls were good, but not good as my drawing, as you can see the tails of peacocks had no trains, and there is nothing about how there are many birds of each races of green peafowls. Each races of birds, may have numbers below 1,000 birds per race, and green peafowls are endangered birds. These birds are still under-studied & poorly understand.

Clinton.

 

[MinxFox]

I did see your picture, it was great! Alto did mate this year though. He mated with Pip, who of course was one of the birds killed, and she laid some eggs but she kept laying them off perches or breaking them so she never hatched out anything. I think she let him mate with her even though Dragon is in the same pen. Pip really loved Alto.

 

[deerman]

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YES two year old will bred , and be fertile ,even if no eye feathers

 

[clinton9]

Hi Alea,
Thankyou goodness Pips had a good attitude toward Alto, so hope he will mate again on early next year.
Keep him well fed, with plently of fruits, nuts and insects, so he will remain strong & healthy through his 3rd winter.
If well fed & healthy, he might have new 150 cm 4th adult train by start of 2013, instead of 100cm 4th adult train.
Clinton.


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[bemba]

This is one of my boys at 13 months old, he is in a heavy moult now at 15 months old, his neck is very green though, not the typical blue?