Peafowl Standards

[Birdrain92]

Since I'm not aware of a peafowl standard and I have shown peafowl and enjoy it but there is no standard that I've found so I think that us pea people should come up with a standard for peafowl based on breed and color. We don't need to have like they have to have a certain number of feathers like pigeons. Just breed what the feathers should look like, body structure, varieties. Please make suggestions and then we could all agree or disagree. I highly doubt this would become the national standard for peafowl unless we found somebody that could make it the national standard of peafowl.

 

[Dany12]

First step .... a drawing!

 

[Birdrain92]

First step .... a drawing!

Beautiful drawing! You're correct the first thing you will see with standards is that it's a drawing not the actual bird. I know that the flight position shows the wing and tail feathers but do you have a photo of peafowl in a show like position maybe like this for an IB. With most standards they have the bird in a show position like this. Just without the horse.

If Colbolt would straighten his leg and Jadea would straighten her neck it would look like a show position.

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Beautiful drawing by clinton9!

Many more here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/594308/illustrations-of-adult-male-peafowls

 

[AnimalsRmyLife]

First step .... a drawing!

Wow! What a beautiful drawing!

Beautiful drawing by clinton9!

Many more here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/594308/illustrations-of-adult-male-peafowls

clinton9's done a really good job!

 

[Trefoil]

JMO - Right now, and maybe forever, pea breeders are trying for new colors. If there was a standard, that would make all "off color" peas culls, which I think would put a damper on breeders being able to get the birds they depend on to breed new colors.
A confirmation standard would be very helpful. Confirmation standards cannot be arbitrary, they must be based on what makes a bird sound.

 

[zazouse]

IMO You can still have standards with different colors and you can have standards in conformation but none of this can be achieved without showing lots of birds to define that standard just like other livestock in a show or sale ring, You would need a very knowledgeable person of peafowl to judge the standard

 

[Birdrain92]

JMO - Right now, and maybe forever, pea breeders are trying for new colors. If there was a standard, that would make all "off color" peas culls, which I think would put a damper on breeders being able to get the birds they depend on to breed new colors.
A confirmation standard would be very helpful. Confirmation standards cannot be arbitrary, they must be based on what makes a bird sound.

I know that we would need someone to say this is standard this is not. This is more of a fun thing.

IMO You can still have standards with different colors and you can have standards in conformation but none of this can be achieved without showing lots of birds to define that standard just like other livestock in a show or sale ring, You would need a very knowledgeable person of peafowl to judge the standard

Which is a problem since there's like barely anyone that would show any kind of peafowl which would mean there wouldn't really be a judge for peafowl. This is kind of more of fun just something us pea people can do.

 

[Garden Peas]

Sigh. I'm going to be a wet blanket here.

@Birdrain92 , I know you've been showing in 4H, and I'm all for that. Ag programs are wonderful for kids and serve a great educational purpose.

But I think that trying to set up any kind of standard for peafowl -- regardless of whether it is for color, conformation, or anything else, would be a huge mistake. It would open Pandora's box in ways that I personally would NOT like to see.

Right now, there is no standard... and there is quite a bit of congeniality between pea-folk. Not necessarily agreement on what makes good peas, but there's a lot of folks trying to act for the good of the birds.

The unfortunate thing that seems invariable to happen when someone sets a "standard" is that human nature kicks in, competitiveness comes out, and the next thing you know, otherwise perfectly nice people get in bickering matches, can't agree on the standard, can't agree on whose birds meet it, and suddenly feel a need to sell their birds as meeting the standard and possibly disparaging other people's birds as NOT meeting the standard. I hate to sound so pessimistic, but I've had some really negative experiences

and seen worse ones. It always totally puzzled me how two or more sets of very nice, friendly people, could fail to have pleasant relationships between them because they were on opposite sides or were in different factions of some disagreement over .... minutae.

I love our peas, and I love my pea-friends. This is a fast road to perdition and I hope we steer clear of it.


Edited to add: I forgot to mention that another bad thing that can happen is a lot of poor breeding can happen depending on how people try to conform to some interpretation of a standard... and sometimes chasing one thing, other things get lost.

 

[Garden Peas]

Now with all that said, I think the sort of thing that @Pfauenfreund is doing in keeping some kind of stud book, and the efforts by many breeders to keep detailed records of what was bred to what and where different birds came from, is highly commendable... and obviously important to anyone trying to carry out a serious breeding program, as well as to anyone trying to do research on our beautiful peas.

Knowledge is good.