We got Snap at the poultry show last November. After her five week quarantine, we let her out and she joined the flock and quickly made friends with our other (and older) peahen Sweetpea. Snap is just a baby, hatched in 2013. Anyway, we've had cold weather for months. The weekend before last, the weather moderated and Snap, Sweetpea, and the two peacocks ventured outside. Now every nice evening there is, the peacocks and peahens take a walk, right before sundown. It's a ritual with them. Usually they just go into the field across the road (we are pretty rural) or the field beside us, or sometimes over to see our neighbor.
They are never as a rule gone very long, or go very far, they almost always come when called, and if I see them off our property I can herd them back home and it's no big deal. Lots of times they don't go off the property. But THIS time, it got to be getting dark, it was dinner time, and no peas. I called and called. I had to go somewhere, so I left the barn open, the lights and radio on, and left. When I came back an hour and a half later, the peacocks were in the barn, but the peahens were not. This was so unusual, but nothing I could do, so I closed up the barn and figured they were probably roosting in the trees nearby. The next morning, I found Sweetpea shivering outside the barn in our vegetable garden, but no Snap. The following week and a half, we had cold weather and snow, and then it turned very cold, and then brutally cold. No Snap. Seeing coyote footprints around every morning in the snow, I figured she was a goner. Til this afternoon, when a neighbor called to tell us he saw one of our "peacocks" in a yard about a half mile away. HUH? The peacocks were in the barn with the door closed, because of the intense cold. So we high tailed it down there, and found Snap lying in someone's yard, in the snow. She must have been hypothermic, because she couldn't get up...I brought a net and just walked up and dropped it on her! Cuddled her in my arms all the way home and we warmed her up and fed her, she was so cold! And we were so elated to find her! She was just a brown lump in the snow, our neighbor just saw her head feathers, otherwise ....well. Just sharing this story because I read about so many lost peahens! I don't know what it is with them, but I'm sure she just got separated from the others and couldn't find her way back, being new. She was just two yards and a field away from home, and she could see our property if she would have looked, but she must have been too scared and confused to find her way back. The fact that she survived a week and a half in the intense cold and snow just boggles our minds.
But we are so happy to have her back, and she is happy to BE back! Still in hospital pen where she will be for several days, til we're sure she's ok. Just thought I'd relay this, we thought it was an amazing story, and just goes to show there is hope, even when you think all hope is lost....
I am bringing our great neighbor a bouquet of peacock feathers and a box of cookies or something tomorrow.
amazing.
