Red Buff Spalding FOUNDER FLOCK -digresses into peafowl in general

[clinton9]

Hi Resolution,
I have two questions:

1) Do Green and IB peafowls fly for longer than 1 mile ???

2) Do Green and IB peafowls fly with legs folden forward, when fly for more than 1 mile in a level flight, ect acrossing the wider rivers ???

I known wild turkeys, jungle fowls, pheasants to fly, with their legs trailing behind their bodies, I researched the photoes of peafowls in flight and I had never seen the photoes of peafowls trailing their legs behind them when they are flying for long distance, at level flight.


Did you published a book about green peafowls and races of green peafowls ???
If yes, please let me know as I'm on look out for books about green peafowls and races of green peafowls and peafowls.


Over seaval past weeks I had been studying the moult duration of adult male peafowls, and found the adult male peafowls took 340 days to renew all flight feathers, start on late October and finish on August.

Adult male peafowl's longest primary feathers are 4th primary feathers and take about 100 days to regrow.
Primary feathers grow at 5mm for next 30-40 days before slow down to 3mm for 10-20 days, then decrease to 2mm when feathers are 2/3 grown and then 1mm when finishing growing feathers.

Entirely train feathers are shed at same time as primaries 6th being shed on February (New Zealand) and tail feathers 1st and primaries 9th are shed within 2-3 days of other each.

Peafowls start to moult juvenile primaries at age of 37 days old, and renew the juvenile primaries, with new immature primaries, took 225 days and then the immature peafowls start to moult at 6 month old while still have old juvenile primaries 10th and growing immature primaries 9th. New immature primaries 10th are fully grown at 8 month old.
Renewment of immature primaries, with 1st adult primaries, took 325 days.

After 1st adult primaries 10th are fully grown at 16 2/2 months old, on late June, there is 70 days of no primary moult.

At 19 month old, wing moult start with secondaries 3rd, then few weeks primaries 1st (innermost) and renewing these 1st adult primaries, with new 2nd adult primaries, take about 330 days, August of 1st year to July of 2nd year.

Wing & tail moults complete at 30 months old, at same time the train feathers are new 2nd adult, with few colourful eyes.

Wing size: wing size of 1-year old male peafowls are slightly smaller than wings of adult male peafowls, but some biggest 1-year-old male peafowls can have wing size nearly same as wing size of adult male peafowls.

Wing size of 2-year old male peafowls, are same as wing size of adult male peafowls.

Testies of 32-month old male peafowls, may enlarge for first time and only domestic 32-month-old male peafowls may be used for breeding as soon as they start to display, with new plain green train feathers, plus few colourful eyes.

Displaying & lekking season for male peafowls in New Zealand, last for 100 days, from October to January.
I had seen two displaying adult males on 14/10/11.
I studied the Indian Blue peafowls in New Zealand, they are mostly kept by people, but there are feral birds that been shot as pest.

Breeding season November to January.

Moult season August of 1st year to September of 2nd year.

Peachicks in their 2nd month of age on March. Hatching month: January.

In New Zealand the adult peacock start to moult the primaries on November and shed the train on February and it take 8 months to reach fully length, fully grown by September.

On 16th January one alive adult male had new primaries 1st-2nd and 2/3 grown growing P.3rd and growing P.4th. P. 5th to 10th were old. Train feathers and tail feathers were all old and not in moult.

On 12th March one alive adult male had new primaries 1st -5th and 2/3 grown growing P.6th and growing P 7th and 8th. P. 9th & 10th were old. This bird was 3 year-old, by earlier moult season and had 1/4 grown growing train, with train feather tips 18 c.m. from tip of real tail feathers.

On 20th May the shot adult male had new primaries 1st-5th, with growing P. 6th to 8th. Old P.9th were going to shed in 2 days time when pin is 1 c.m. P.10th is old and will shed in 22 days time, with P.10th (outermost) take 80 days to regrow, finish on 31st August.
Tips of growing train were 13 c.m from tip of 566 c.m. central old tail 1st which had shed the day the bird were shot. Tail 1st take about 80 days to regrow.

One shot adult male on October and on 11th September this year an one freshly dead adult male had fresh plumages and no moults and on October adult male peafowl, the train tips were 86 c.m. from tips of real tail feathers 1st. Tip of central tail feathers 1st were 54 c.m. from tip of rump feathers which are next door to shortest innermost train feathers.

The heart is 54 m.m. x 32m.m. shaped like a pear and the testies were 40m.m. x 15m.m. and getting bigger. The skull were 93 m.m. from tip of beak, to back of skull.

During post juvenile moult, male took 222 days from shedding juvenile P.1st to when new immature P.10 is fully grown, and during post immature moult the same male took 324 days from shedding immature P.1st to when new 1st adult P. 10th is fully grown. Head feathers are the last feathers to be replaced, with last white juvenile chin feathers been shed 395 days after shedding immature P.1st. At 20th month old the head and neck feathers were all blue immature feathers, mixed with 1st adult blue feathers and free of white feathers on chin. Post 1st adult moult started 72 days later after 1st adult P.10th were fully grown, and 101 days later the 1st adult P.4th were shedded., at same time the P.1st-2nd were fully grown. Post 1st adult moult duration of primaries not known but about 360 ? days, with likely 370 ? days for adult male peafowls to renew 10 primaries.
Immature P. 1st took 58 days to regrow, during post juvenile moult and 1st adult P.1st took 86 days to regrow.
Immature P. 10th took 69 days to regrow, and 1st adult P. 10th took 73 days to regrow.
Adult P. 10th take 80 days to regrow.

Juvenile, immature, 1st adult flight feathers grow at 4 mm daily growth per day.

The train were not heavy to hold with your hand as feathers were light and the peacocks don't feel much stress, and capable of flying fast at 40 k/m, the 20 greyish brown tail feathers were used as rudder and brake, the train remain closed and trail behind bird as bird flies.

32 Crown feathers were 55m.m., with bases were buried 4m.m. deep in skin and the feather shafts were bare of webs, expert for tips...they were like "flowers" on head.

Had thick downy feathers and thicker plumage allowed peafowls to lives down to temperature -10oC.


Peafowls are most intelligent of game birds, at same intelligence as Canada geese. Mother peahen allogrooms the chicks and father peacocks and mother peahen show foods to chicks by pick the food and hold the food for chick to pick & eat. Peachicks are brooded often by mother peahens.


There are four immature plumages: juvenile, immature, 1st adult, 2nd adult.

1) juvenile plumage last from hatching to @ 8 month old.
2) immature plumage last from 27 days old to 28 months old.
3) 1st adult plumage, like adult, but barred rump, back and short barred train, from 7 month-old to 1 1/2 year old.
4) 2nd adult plumage, like adult, but short entirely green train.
5) 3rd adult plumage: Fully adult & breeding for 1st time.

Late juvenile feathers look like immature feathers, while late immature feathers look more like 1st adult feathers. 1st adult belly feathers do not have white on feathers.
I been studying on few longest peafowl train feathers, and found the train feathers grow at 7mm per day.
One 1537mm train feather take 225 days to regrow.
The longest train feathers of adult male peafowl, take 240 days to regrow, the longest train feathers had "fish tail" on tips.
0n 11th September this year, I had collected the three shot peafowls...two 1- year-old male peafowls and an one 1-year-old peahen from my friend, and I been studying them.

They start their wing moults on August and most birds had 1/2 grown primary 1st, but no tail moult and no train moult and in early stage of body moult, with most old feathers and few growing feathers. No crown moult. None of these 1-year-old peafowls are in breeding season as their sex parts were small, in males-very small 13mm to 15mm X 3mm, like a rice grain, while female had 25mm X 10mm, with biggest egg being 4mm. Peahen start to breed when they are 32 months old. 1-year male's heart: 50mm X 30mm.

Peafowls are strong flier and strong birds, with colour of breast muscles same as for pleasants, in colour being dark pink and yellow skin.

Both central tail feather 1st and longest train feather of 1st adult plumage, are 505mm, from a 1-year-old peacock.
These two male birds were 20-months-old, by moult patten in flight feathers and barred short train feathers.
Male 1-year-old peafowls had leg spurs 15 mm, while one female 1-year-old peafowl had leg spurs 9 mm.

Body length of 1-year-old peafowls:

one male 1125 mm
one female 955 mm

I measured them from tip of beaks, to tip of tail feathers.
Peafowls of both sexes, had yellow bodyfat on back & rump, where train feathers grow from, and had a small oil grand.

Clinton.

 

[Resolution]

Hi Clinton. I'm going to start a new thread where we can discuss your data. You are very thorough. I'm going to try and locate Frank Lin as well. He has a real interest in Peafowl as well.

 

[deerman]

remember molt of feathers and growth of them are different.......even from the north and south here in the states. Sure big different from US to other countries.

 

[Resolution]

These hybrids look so similar to the Hue and Tennasirm peafowl races they may very well mark the extinction of those two evolutionary novelties. When people see a Hue imperator or Tennasirim spicifer they are often quick to label them hybrid -even well-educated people with plenty of experience with peafowl.


Hybrids run the risk of polluting captive Green Peafowl populations. They must be managed carefully. In my opinion, people working hybrids should register them and put their best effort toward never breeding these hybrids with a high % of green blood into Green or Indian blood lines. Hybrids should, in my opinion, only be bred with one another. There are fewer and fewer purebred Indians around the Green Peafowl situation has gotten well out of hand. Registries followed by pedigrees just as we see in hybrid cat breeding. The emphasis is to introduce the genes of wild cat species into domestic cat breeds. There is no impetus to breed back to any of the wild species with a hybrid. It's not an issue of condoning the practice. It seems more practical to manage the damage and keep it contained. Anyone that's seen an opal spaulding knows bloody well that's a masterpiece and it's of hybrid origin. Most people working with them seriously are very sure of their genetic origins and they're never going to contaminate those lines with something of unknown provenance.

 

[MinxFox]

Okay, but I thought all green peafowl have crest feathers that are long and more sword shaped rather than a triangle shape on the end. I don't have green peafowl or Spaldings, but when I look at a peafowl that is questionable I look at a few areas one of which is the crest. Spaldings can have tight crests but mostly all of them end with the triangle or almost a triangle.

Of course an exception would be the emerald spalding split to white at texaspeafowl:
http://texaspeafowl.com/DSC_9766.JPG

If that photo was not labeled I would mistake it as a green.

 

[Resolution]

Quote:
I would mistake that peafowl as a green myself. Scary.

There are different forms of Green Peafowl and all their crests are different. In captivity in the USA- who knows what to go by- save for DNA- nuclear and mtDNA- microsatellites .
But anyone interested needs to spend some time in the specimen collection of natural history museums where there are green peafowl collected in centuries past-from throughout their collective range.
Short crests shaped like a Christmas tree - that's what a few forms exhibit. They aren't very tall. I call those sheathed. Another form has a crest that falls apart at the ends- -there are different crest types in wild birds. Captive birds are so mudddied up it worries me- and it worries me when people that raise green peafowl see one with a shorter crest and suspect it to be hybrid.

Perhaps forms of Green Peafowl that live in the wettest forest environments have the most compact crests as the imperator forms from the coast of Vietnam along with the Northern/Tennasirim race of the spicifer exhibit similar sheath shaped crests and the aquamarine grey neck colouration -they live in similar coastal habitat- very wet forest compared with what normally finds Green Peafowl in.
It's probably a good thing to use crests as an indicator of captive stock but with wild birds or imported birds of known provenance- such as those imported recently from Europe-
that's invaluable stock. I've heard some mention of short crests and suspicion of such but the parties have difficulty believing there could be such a thing as a short crested wild purely green peafowl.

The Sri Lanka race of the Indian Peafowl exhibits traits that remind me of hybrids as well, especially the females and juvenile males.

Don't visit Sri Lanka forest reserves if ticks freak you out. They are everywhere.

Check out the iridescence in the shoulder plumage -captured within the striated scaling. That's not present at this proportion in the shoulder feathers of most nominate Indian peafowl males. The pattern is also slightly divergent. That intense secondary wing speculum- it's another thing entirely- don't see that in hybrids- not that depth of blue black. Further, the Sri Lanka race of the Indian Peafowl exhibits the bluest breast. Its neck is electric cadmium blue with a purple spark. But the breast is that indescribable peacock blue- Something about the blue in an Indian Peafowl rocks the visual senses like mocha does for the olfactory.

Check out the juvenile male ( wrote in female earlier because I was not paying attention)- and this photo was taken in the middle of a wildlife reserve where very few locals much less tourists venture due to the terrain and heat. I could swear the hens and juveniles were hybrids but every specimen skin I've studied from Sri Lanka exhibits those same traits.

Juvenile Sri Lanka

adult male Sri Lanka note length and size of crest.

On that same note, the Sri Lanka race of the Indian Peafowl has a larger crest than that of the mainland form. They also have quite a lot of iridescence in their scaling.The scaling is different from that of Indian race. There is more surface area in the white facial skin. They look as if they might be hybrid with green peafowl but really these forms of peafowl that don't fit easily into our definitions only remind us that the parameters we know well are incomplete. We only know what we've seen in photos and in collections and now a days there's so much mongrelization - in Asia even more than USA - > We can hardly hope for a pure green peafowl unless you purchase it from someone serious. The tall crest we prefer is appropriate for some species of Green Peafowl but not all species of Green Peafowl. A taller crest in the Sri Lanka peafowl doesn't mean it's a hybrid it just means that it resembles the common ancestor of the Green Peafowls a bit more than the nominate cristatus resembles that same ancestor. One could say that the nominate race of the Indian Peafowl is the recently derived and highly evolved of all the peafowl species and genera. When you look at the striated scaling on the shoulder plumes of the Indian peafowl try and visualize how the common ancestor of the green and blue peafowl may have looked.
It probably was striated boldly -striped barred- like the female green peafowl and the aridification of the subcontinent of India -the extreme deciduous nature of dry, seasonally semi-arid forests
has resulted in a sunburned version of a green peafowl. But it's so exquisitely derived - the Indian Peafowl-it's a disappointment to see what artificial selection has rendered them. They're becoming junk food versions of themselves just as we've seen in the golden pheasant.

 

[MinxFox]

Okay, now I get it. Just like most creatures there are variants in greens, like some coyotes have larger ears than others or some are black, etc. For a while I have been interested in green peafowl and want some someday, but I don't want to unknowingly get hybrids, and I don't really want to keep spaldings. I certainly don't want to breed a green to a blue variety to get spaldings, I just want to breed some greens. I know Wolfgang has great birds, but the cost of that would be too much, so I am still looking carefully and I am collecting photos of different breeder's green peafowl and putting them all on one page to compare them and see what looks best. So far most of them look about the same in comparison, but the burmese are a little varied in color.

I need to visit a small local aviculturist again. He has one pair of Javas and he said he has had them for years and hasn't gotten any chicks from them. They are beautiful birds, and not very spooky, but a little weary. I was able to throw lettuce into their pen and the male cautiously looked at it then after a few minutes he ate some. Something has happened to the male because he walks very strangely, almost like it is painful for him to walk because he clenches his feet before he puts them on the ground and it is very strange. The owner said it was from fence fighting with a blackshoulder. The peahen acts more stressed out and paces a lot looking in at the white peafowl pen. She is missing her chest feathers and has pecked off the peacock's crest, but I have seen the two before when they had all their feathers and the male has a big crest. I want to see them again. I have no idea if he would sell them to me since he hasn't had any luck with them. Next time I should ask how old they are. I also need to ask how he got them. He gets all kinds of exotic birds, oh and I need to get photos of the greens.

 

[Resolution]

Elton Housely in Geneva Alabama has nice green peafowl and he wont charge you and arm and leg for them.They're in perfect feather and ligament health as he feeds them ultrakibble.

 

[MinxFox]

Oh sweet, we will have to go visit him! Thanks a bunch.

 

[clinton9]

Alea,
Best is to choose the tamest green peafowls, as they are more nervous & wild than IB peafowls.

Green peafowls need bigger pens as they are more active than IB peafowls, and often walking along edges of pens if pens not big.

Had you built the bigger pens near your bed window, for green peafowls ???

Some adult male green peafowls can be aggressive & attacks any birds.

I known an one very tame adult male green peafowl had his cheek rubbed by a chinese man.

You can see the two photoes of a 2-year-old green peacock being spoiled in website: www.pavo-muticus.de

Next year you could try to get some pre-hatching green peafowl eggs and hatch them yourseft & rear them yourseft, so you get tamest & friendliest green peafowls.

But please do not hybridize both green peafowls and IB peafowls, because the numbers of each races of green peafowls, are unknown and below 500 to 1,000 birds and are endangered species.
Spalding peafowls are plentiful in USA, No need to hybridize these birds. Keep both IB & green peafowls stay pure.

Clinton.