Show off your Peas!

[DylansMom]

I also think we should consider the ramifications of never catching and holding a bird. What if that bird at 10 years old gets injured or seriously ill to the point where it will die without treatment. Do we think the bird will be more stressed at this point if it has never ever been caught or if it has had the experience of being caught medicated and released unharmed a couple times a year for it's entire 10 year life?
I tend to think a bird that has never been caught would be much more stressed than one that has been caught regularly, and in this scenario the bird is already weakened by injury or illness, so stress will be even more dangerous for it. I personally think it is somewhat irresponsible to do this to your bird, but that is just my opinion.

 

[zazouse]

I know people that have free range peafowl and have never wormed them once and they get by just fine.

You don't fee range so what is the point of this statement?
I totally free range all my birds as soon as they feather out and are big enough to not be eaten by a snake.
They eat all kinds of toxic stuff and hot peppers i grow for them and i believe some of this stuff might help keep some worms in check but i still worm them every 2 to 3 months and i treat all of them for mites in the fall after breeding season, catching them is not the hard part for me, holding them and treating two areas by myself is the challenge but i get it done and none of my birds have died and they all come right back and eat out of my hands.

 

[KsKingBee]

Wow, you guys have really been burning up this thread! Almost ten pages to catch up with ya'll! Most of it flaming Birdbrain for using fairy dust on his birds. Good grief Brains, haven't you learned where to get good information yet? Yes, I also know a guy that free ranges his peas, feeds them nothing but scratch and had never even thought about worming or medicating them. And yes, he still has them walking about his farm, but how many die without him knowing it? I suspect quite a few, but when you have fifty peas running wild they do have a way of multiplying faster than dieing.

On the stress issue, my vet was stressed when I brought a hen in for her to see, both times. The first time she warned me it could be dead before I got it home. It didn't die, but I did have two die in my arms and I will never forget the absolutely horrible feeling of the last death throws as the pass. The first one to die in my arms was while we were giving injections for respiratory infections. We had a necropsy done and found a cyst on her heart that had burst because of the rapid heart beat.

The other was the little wormy peachick shown in the picture earlier. In her case, she also had signs of respiratory distress caused by a worm overload. The worming caused a toxic buildup from the dieing worms and catching her for an injection was just too much for her system.

And catching birds can also lead to accidents. We have a pied hen we now call Limpy because we somehow damaged her when we caught her. There is a learning curve associated with handling your livestock, but it has to happen, practice makes better, just be careful and do the best you can.

 

[zazouse]

Wow, you guys have really been burning up this thread! Almost ten pages to catch up with ya'll! Most of it flaming Birdbrain for using fairy dust on his birds. Good grief Brains, haven't you learned where to get good information yet? Yes, I also know a guy that free ranges his peas, feeds them nothing but scratch and had never even thought about worming or medicating them. And yes, he still has them walking about his farm, but how many die without him knowing it? I suspect quite a few, but when you have fifty peas running wild they do have a way of multiplying faster than dieing.

On the stress issue, my vet was stressed when I brought a hen in for her to see, both times. The first time she warned me it could be dead before I got it home. It didn't die, but I did have two die in my arms and I will never forget the absolutely horrible feeling of the last death throws as the pass. The first one to die in my arms was while we were giving injections for respiratory infections. We had a necropsy done and found a cyst on her heart that had burst because of the rapid heart beat.

The other was the little wormy peachick shown in the picture earlier. In her case, she also had signs of respiratory distress caused by a worm overload. The worming caused a toxic buildup from the dieing worms and catching her for an injection was just too much for her system.

And catching birds can also lead to accidents. We have a pied hen we now call Limpy because we somehow damaged her when we caught her. There is a learning curve associated with handling your livestock, but it has to happen, practice makes better, just be careful and do the best you can.

I have come to the conclusion that every winter Bird will come up with something for us to debate about in the winter months

he got more excuses and theories than a defense lawyer

 

[DylansMom]

Wow, you guys have really been burning up this thread! Almost ten pages to catch up with ya'll! Most of it flaming Birdbrain for using fairy dust on his birds. Good grief Brains, haven't you learned where to get good information yet? Yes, I also know a guy that free ranges his peas, feeds them nothing but scratch and had never even thought about worming or medicating them. And yes, he still has them walking about his farm, but how many die without him knowing it? I suspect quite a few, but when you have fifty peas running wild they do have a way of multiplying faster than dieing.

On the stress issue, my vet was stressed when I brought a hen in for her to see, both times. The first time she warned me it could be dead before I got it home. It didn't die, but I did have two die in my arms and I will never forget the absolutely horrible feeling of the last death throws as the pass. The first one to die in my arms was while we were giving injections for respiratory infections. We had a necropsy done and found a cyst on her heart that had burst because of the rapid heart beat.

The other was the little wormy peachick shown in the picture earlier. In her case, she also had signs of respiratory distress caused by a worm overload. The worming caused a toxic buildup from the dieing worms and catching her for an injection was just too much for her system.

And catching birds can also lead to accidents. We have a pied hen we now call Limpy because we somehow damaged her when we caught her. There is a learning curve associated with handling your livestock, but it has to happen, practice makes better, just be careful and do the best you can.

Just to be perfectly clear here, the 2 birds you had die during handling. Were they strong healthy birds who were receiving preventative medication(wormer), or were they birds who were already compromised or weakened by some sort of disease or infection/infestation? Not questioning this at all, I just want it to be perfectly clear for others who may read this.

I recently met someone with some free ranging Peas, when we discussed worming he said he'd never wormed his and didn't intend to. He preferred to let them live and die naturally as a method of controlling the flock size. He freely admitted to finding dead ones and was not the least interested in the causes of their death.

When catching do you use a net or some other method? I use a net, but I know some people consider netting to be dangerous.

 

[nate1the1great1]

I dont think my peas like being outside now bc it was 50 yesterday then last night fog rolled in and it froze and apparently the peas were in the tree and this happened

 

[Garden Peas]

When catching do you use a net or some other method? I use a net, but I know some people consider netting to be dangerous.

@DylansMom , do you think you could start a new thread on catching and handling peafowl, with photos of the net you use and pictures (if you have any) of how to safely restrain a bird?

And maybe some folks who don't use nets can explain how they do it.

It's a subject that quite a few of us really don't know enough about, and you are correct -- the longer the peas go without being handled, the more stressful it is for them. Then when they are ill or injured, we have a crisis on our hands...

 

[Garden Peas]

Don't be silly Peas! We all KNOW garlic only works on Vampires not Werewolves!

what was I thinking?

Of course you are absolutely correct. Garlic and mustard seeds is for vampires. For werewolves one needs wolfsbane and silver bullets...

Although someone told me the other day that she hadn't had any werewolf attacks since she's been using garlic, so she said the garlic seems to work.

 

[casportpony]

Quote: I started one. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/945547/how-to-safely-catch-and-treat-and-or-medicate-peafowl

-Kathy

 

[DylansMom]

@DylansMom , do you think you could start a new thread on catching and handling peafowl, with photos of the net you use and pictures (if you have any) of how to safely restrain a bird?

And maybe some folks who don't use nets can explain how they do it.

It's a subject that quite a few of us really don't know enough about, and you are correct -- the longer the peas go without being handled, the more stressful it is for them. Then when they are ill or injured, we have a crisis on our hands...

I would be happy to do that, but I'm going to wait for some slightly warmer weather. It's frigid out there, and I'll need hubby to demonstrate so I can take some pics, and I doubt he's going to want to go out and catch Peas in the freezing cold just for demo purposes.

He'd look at me like I'd lost what little mind I had left! And honestly for me it depends on the bird, my CBS hen the 19 year old, is a bit on the slow side, so I will just corner her and she will try to jump to get away and usually she jumps right up into my arms, but we've gotten to know each other pretty well over the past 19 years. The net is easiest for most.