My peafowl just had their first chicks. I have some questions.

[reveriereptile]

A few days ago we decided to crack some eggs under the hen that sat first since she was past due and started sitting after only a week after the male was released. Two of her eggs were rotten and the third egg had a 1/3 developed chick with rotten yolk around it. We were glad to see that the male was at least fertile. This was her second nest and she is young so she probably didn't know to sit later.
Yesterday I wake up to my FIL handing me a sick pea chick. He said the hen that we thought nested last hatched out the sick one and another one. Well we just found her next a few days ago and thought she wasn't due for another week or two. She is a new mother and one of our two younger hens. She had her nest up about 9' from the floor of the barn but also next to 8' drop for a feed hole. One of the chicks (healthier one) must of jumped off and the mother went down to it and left the other one. I have no clue how the chick survived a 17' drop onto concrete but it was running around fine. I thought they were older cause they had a few wing feathers till I looked online today. We thought maybe they hatched a while ago due to the feathers and that it might of been without water, food, and got cold.
We took the other eggs over to a friend's house to put under one of her geese. One egg had a peep hole in it. We weren't sure if they were still good or not but decided to let her find out. I went over to my aunt-in-law's place to borrow her incubator to put the chick in and got the temp up to around 95 degrees. We let it warm up for a while and then decided to get an eye dropper to give it some sugar water. We gave it a drop of the water and waited a minute and it started moving around more. Well anyway later it ended up dying.
Last night my FIL decided to move the hen and her chick into a safe area and he got a Amish working for him to help. Well the Amish runs the hen up into the area and said she has four chicks. My FIL says no she only has one and is staring right at her. Another hen must of had all her eggs hatch. They decide to check our last hen out to see if she had anything so they could move her also. She had one chick that they seen and a few eggs left so they decided to wait. Today she had 5 chicks. A couple of them must of been hiding under her when they checked.
All three hens are moved with their chicks into a safe area with light, food, and water. I went out to check on them and two of the hens were sharing two chicks between them and the other 8 chicks were under the other hen. She seem to be doing a better job and protecting them under her and was more voical. I think she is one of the older hens which might be around 4 years old. The other two don't seem to be doing as good at calling the chicks to get up under them.
I haven't noticed any of them taking the chicks over to get water or feed. They might be but not while I'm watching. My FIL threw some tiny bread pieces in there and I didn't see any left so I'm hoping they are taking them over to the food.
We plan on selling them which we do have some people that said they would like to buy some if we have any hatch. My FIL wants to wait a month before selling them since he doesn't want to sale them and have any die and feel bad. He was thinking if he waits a month that they would be more likely not to die unless they weren't housed right. He also wants to watch them grow since we've never had pea chicks before. I know that Indian blue (I'm assuming that is what they are except for the hen that didn't hatch any) are usually sold for $25 for day old chicks. How much do month old chicks sale for? Are they to early to tell gender at that age? We have someone wanting to buy 5 of them since he has 4 males but doesn't have any hens. He figured if he bought 5 he would have a chance of getting some hens in the group.

 

[NateinFL]

Wow, a 17 ft. fall is unreal. Reminds me of wood duck babies jumping out of the nest, but I have heard of peacocks nesting on 2nd story balconies and got babies down on their own. Interesting how the hens are all claiming the babies to be theirs.

If you have someone wanting to buy them already, I would sell them now since you have no plans on keeping them, will save you from having to pen them up or leave them roaming and worry about predator problems.

Good luck whatever you do!

 

[Kedreeva]

If you're going to wait to sell them because you don't want them to die after sale, then wait at least 3 months. Their immune systems will be better capable of handling anything and they have the highest mortality rate before 3 months. If you don't want to wait that long, you may as well sell them now, and tell the buyer to keep them in a brooder off "real" ground until 3 months for the best chance at living. On the ground, they can pick up a lot of bad things, most notedly worms (which will kill them at a young age). I'll agree with Nathhowe, and say sell them now. If nothing else, selling them early to someone who will brooder raise them will give the buyer a better chance at having friendlier birds.

As for price... that's really a question only you can answer. Price varies wildly from place to place. Like here, a one year old IB goes for $20-75, and day old to three month chicks anywhere from $5-25. Other places, a year old IB may sell for $100-200 instead. That's a huge difference, and it's entirely dependent upon your location and local buyer interest. I personally would never buy a day old chick for $25 here, but someplace where a day old chick is $30, $25 is a good deal.