Should my Peafowl be laying now? I did not think so.

[houndit]

I felt like my peafowl laid poorly al year. From 7 hens I seldom ever got more than two eggs a day and very frequently none at all. I do not know why. I am feeding them exacty what the man I purchased the from told me to. Anyway they stopped laying a couple months ago which I expected. Than all of a sudden I got a couple eggs the last few days. What is going on with these birds? They are in a covered pen outside. We have had a very mild Winter so far but it has been cool enough I would have thought for sure they would know it was Winter. Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong?

 

[DylansMom]

I felt like my peafowl laid poorly al year. From 7 hens I seldom ever got more than two eggs a day and very frequently none at all. I do not know why. I am feeding them exacty what the man I purchased the from told me to. Anyway they stopped laying a couple months ago which I expected. Than all of a sudden I got a couple eggs the last few days. What is going on with these birds? They are in a covered pen outside. We have had a very mild Winter so far but it has been cool enough I would have thought for sure they would know it was Winter. Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong?

Off-hand I can think of a couple of things, but you should be aware that this past year was kind of a weird one for lots of people and their Peas. We think it was that unusually harsh winter that got things off-kilter.
Now back to your hens, do you know how old they are? At the age of 2 a Peahen will usually lay a couple of eggs, but not many. They usually start in earnest their third year, there are exceptions to this, but this is generally the case. Also an aged hen will slow down just like a chicken. Usually a Peahen will lay 1 egg every other day and sometimes every third day, they do not lay anywhere near as prolifically as a chicken hen will. And they will often take breaks between clutches, so an egg every other day until there are 6-8 eggs and then nothing for several weeks and then repeat.
Have they been wormed regularly? Poor health can cause them to stop laying as can egg binding. I've had hens get a little bound on their first or second egg of the season, then they pass it, but do not lay again for weeks, months or the rest of the season even. What exactly did the man you got them from feed them? I got some years ago from a person who fed them nothing but hard cat food. Not an ideal diet, but they can survive on it and not look too bad for awhile at least. Just trying to say that even if that's what he fed it may not be the best for them.
Lastly, several other people have gotten some eggs over the past week, so it is not just your birds that are confused.

 

[Garden Peas]

It's December. Go figure

 

[Garden Peas]

And I just went outside and picked up egg #5

 

[casportpony]

One of my hens laid 5 in November and one yesterday.

-Kathy

 

[houndit]

I was tod that they were three or four when I purchased them, so they should be four or five now. I am feeding them Puria Flock Raiser along with some scratch grains. I once read that each hen laid about 50 eggs a year. I suppose that was what I was basing my perceived lack of eggs on. Maybe they were up to standard?

 

[DylansMom]

I was tod that they were three or four when I purchased them, so they should be four or five now. I am feeding them Puria Flock Raiser along with some scratch grains. I once read that each hen laid about 50 eggs a year. I suppose that was what I was basing my perceived lack of eggs on. Maybe they were up to standard?

I think my most prolific layer hits about 35-40 per year. The majority probably 25-30, and the older ones 10-20. 50 seems very high to me.

 

[Dany12]

Breeding period in all animals ... the plant is regulated by varying the length of the day ... Photoperiod.
The rooster is it also in breeding time?
Have you seen or heard matings ?
Eggs will they be fertilized ?
For me ' Purina Flock Raiser ' it's a booster ! Do you use a Bloom Booster all year long for your geraniums ou fuchsias ? This kind of 'booster' is good in the lay time but throughout the year peacocks do not need too rich nourriture! That's where the peacocks live in India ... their homeland! http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CvSmOzxjFRQ/S0Zc8UHN5LI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/l9fW_lJ0pGk/s1600/DSC02516.JPG At home in free ranching in winter they receive maize and wheat (maybe 12% protein).

 

[Garden Peas]

I was tod that they were three or four when I purchased them, so they should be four or five now. I am feeding them Puria Flock Raiser along with some scratch grains. I once read that each hen laid about 50 eggs a year. I suppose that was what I was basing my perceived lack of eggs on. Maybe they were up to standard?

Any more eggs? Anything fertile? My first four are clear, latest five, too soon to tell. My hen is really working at this, poor thing

Purina flock raiser is 20% protein, you can add a little cat food to up the protein content, and make sure there is adequate calcium avaible, because it isn't a laying feed. I've been hearing vitamin E is important for laying hens, so I am supplementing mine a little bit, trying not to overdo it though. (If you do this, make sure you are using the edible kind, like what comes in capsules, not the mineral oil kind that you rub on your hands and isn't supposed to be eaten. Cut open the capsules and squeeze out the oil, you can add it to food.)

Were the eggs this summer fertile? It sounds like your hens were pretty much doing what would be expected.

 

[Garden Peas]

Breeding period in all animals ... the plant is regulated by varying the length of the day ... Photoperiod.

The rooster is it also in breeding time?

Have you seen or heard matings ?

Eggs will they be fertilized ?


For me ' Purina Flock Raiser ' it's a booster !
Do you use a Bloom Booster all year long for your geraniums ou fuchsias ?

This kind of 'booster' is good in the lay time but throughout the year peacocks do not need too rich nourriture!
That's where the peacocks live in India ... their homeland!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CvSmOzxjFRQ/S0Zc8UHN5LI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/l9fW_lJ0pGk/s1600/DSC02516.JPG

At home in free ranching in winter they receive maize and wheat (maybe 12% protein).

Reproduction in plants and animals is not necessarily strictly controlled by day length, for example, day-neutral strawberries. Many fruit trees depend on chilling hours and temperatures, not day length. I have to be very careful which peach tree varieties I plant here, as the ones which tend to bloom at lower spring temperatures often burst into full flower in January, just in time to get all the fruit frozen and/or blown off the tree by ferocious winds. The ones that wait until it is warmer to bloom usually do better here. The peaches are much more dependent on temperature than on day length for the onset of blooming. Many tropical plants bloom based on rainy/dry season. Dog reproduction is dependent on the cycle of the female, not related to day length at all, so far as I can tell, but is instead based upon an interval specific to the dog and breed, most often either twice or once per year, at fairly evenly spaced intervals. Cat reproduction has nothing to do with day length as far as I can tell, but is instead based upon a specific interval of time between heat cycles. I have not yet found any article which states and gives a basis for stating that peafowl reproduction is related to day length. I've been looking fairly hard, with no success. If you know of such an article or any such research, please point me in that direction, because I am very interested in this.

As for feed, peafowl have high protein requirements. Flock Raiser is a balanced feed, not a blossom fertilizer for birds, not a nutritional supplement. These are not begonias, geraniums or fuschias, these are birds with specific nutritional requirements. Different species of birds have different nutritional requirements, just as different kinds of animals and plants have. Peas require quite a bit of protein to maintain good health. Note that feathers are made of keratin, like fingernails, but with a different structure. Feathers are almost completely protein... they are even treated and fed to fish as a protein source. It's one of the reasons birds "feather pick." Male birds are growing new trains over the winter... NOT during mating season. The male requires an adequate source of protein over the winter in order to grow his abundant lush train. I have been reading that train growth actually depresses the male's immune system somewhat due to the high needs it places on his system. Depriving him of adequate protein during train growth seems to me to be likely to set him up for potentially serious illness.

Obviously we don't want to overstress the kidneys... but protein and kidneys is an interesting question. For a long time, dogs were put on low protein diets when they experienced failing kidneys. But my vet explained to me (about 3 times, I was slow on the uptake) that a more current school of thought is that a higher level of protein actually is less stressful on the dog's kidneys, because the level of protein needs to meet what the dog is biologically adapted to consume. So the somewhat higher protein special diet dogs do better than the low protein special diet dogs, even when in some level of kidney failure. I'm still wrapping my brain around that one, but I read a lot of specialty dog food bags when one of my dogs started having kidney problems...

Free ranging peafowl eat much more than just maize (corn) and wheat. They are able to catch bugs and small reptiles as well as snakes, and they eat a variety of plant types, including seeds. Zaz has written quite a bit about what her birds eat at her place. I have not read ANYTHING to suggest peas in their native India subsist entirely on maize and wheat over the "winter" -- and if "at home" means somewhere else... I am pretty sure that peas fed long term nothing but wheat and corn would develop nutritional deficiencies. And 12% protein is very low -- the birds would have to consume an awful lot of 12% protein food to obtain sufficient total protein for good health. Also, free ranged birds are able to enjoy much more exercise than birds raised in a pen, which means their energy requirements are somewhat different.