What color should I try to breed to make money?

[peafowlmom]

I have BS cock with India Blue, I have a loud pied green cock with a green hen. A white pair, 1 pair of india blues, 1 pair of pieds, a cock,silver white eye pied cock, dark pied white eye cock. Thanks for helping.

 

[connerhills]

I dont want to be the one that says his ,but you dont make any money raising peafowl, Just the fun of doing it, and watching them live. I have raised them since 1976 and still in the hole.. but I have had fun doing it.... George connerhills

 

[trailchick]

I think you would have to have inherited a great deal of money,
have a large spread near a densely populated area of farms
that didnt have peas & wanted them,
a couple of employees or nearby adult children
to make breeding pens, & a lot of free time to take care of them.......
then you might make a couple of bucks.

Like Connerhills says, we do it because we love seeing them.
If you make more than you spend, my congrats to you!

 

[Bigcreekpeafowl]

I dont want to be the one that says his ,but you dont make any money raising peafowl, Just the fun of doing it, and watching them live. I have raised them since 1976 and still in the hole.. but I have had fun doing it.... George connerhills

In the hole since 2004. But it is SO much fun. :yiipchick

 

[deerman]

I made all kind of money, selling hatching egg ,peachicks ,and breeding pairs.












If you don't count my time , cost of my pens, cost of feed , cost of hatching the eggs. cost of birds every time i go to the auction , or that new color i just have to have, spend $1500 or more each year. on new birds.


I did sell over $ 3,000 in hatching eggs on ebay each spring....all shipped without one single broken egg,in 4 years and better yet 100% feedback . may sound like a lot , but i spent a hell of a lot more than i took in.




Now the whites sell good.
Peach allway sold good for me.
pure greens sell higher but cost higher to raise them.

 

[peafowlmom]

I also LOVE PEACOCKS. My husband said they are a very expensive so I have been doing side jobs and I am a homeschool mother and a housewife who's husband expects all meals made, to fetch whatever and so on, and so on, and so on! EEK. I pay for whatever they need. I have pawned my best necklaces, cashed in a $400 quarter collection to get what I have, spend all money given by relatives for holidays (thank you God for them, I have a great family!). I was just hoping there was a way to say, hey they are paying for their feed and this is my dream.
Carrie Fletcher

 

[deerman]

I have BS cock with India Blue, I have a loud pied green cock with a green hen. A white pair, 1 pair of india blues, 1 pair of pieds, a cock,silver white eye pied cock, dark pied white eye cock. Thanks for helping.

i was joking around .....but first it take the same feed to feed a normal blue as a charcoal ,or any other color.

so i will try to give you mating of you pair , to produce the best money you have for your birds.

Depends on area ,so best if you can ship which is easy and buyer pays cost.

If thats a true green hen , find her a green mate=pure green sell higher than spalding...but again people want to know they are pure.

Other than looks extra male cost to feed , you only need 1 male to 4 hens, and even 1 to 6 with some males.

look like you have 7 males and 5 hens, so you need lot more hens or sell some males.

with your hen 1 or two males all you need except if that a pure green hen.

of your males white ,pied,silver pied,dark pied ,chicks and eggs from their mate ,will bring higher dollars.

White sell good , you could mate dark pied with white hen get 100 % pieds ,but strange dark pied don't bring much money or sell good...because look a lot like a normal peafowl.....so pied to pied will give you some dark pieds.

silver pied x white , pied, 2 blue hen = good mix of chick and hatching eggs...even these dark pied will be w/e,2 blue hen will =blue w/e of coarse split
white hen = some white some pied ,some w/e

i didn't keep many white or pure blues....i raised enough white from pieds, and enough blues from split birds of other colors.

remember other than green and charcoal they all cost the same to keep....charcoal hard to produce male, they dont live as long.....hens don't lay


a good way to see what color or pattern sell for check out some of the big breeders web sites.

 

[AquaEyes]

First try to think of something that doesn't yet exist, then figure out what you'd need to do to get there. It probably won't happen in one generation, but if and when you succeed, hold onto enough to start outcrossing so that you can offer chicks as unrelated pairs. If it takes you a few generations to get there, it'll take your competition the same amount of time, and you'll have that window in which you are the only breeder raising what you've put together.

 

[bdfive]

My peafowl are costing my kids their inheritance.

 

[MinxFox]

I think peafowl keeping is like a hobby...Selling them will get you some money but another idea is crafts. Since you are a homeschool mom, you could have an art class where you have your kids make crafts with the peafowl feathers and sell it. Even just selling train feathers is a great way to make money. I know some people are not into selling the feathers but from what I have seen people that have bought feathers from me have been more than happy to pay for the feathers because they know where the feathers came from and know that I love my birds. Who knows where the peafowl feathers in the store come from. I would hate to think peacocks are killed for the feathers or the feathers are plucked. My art teacher has bought feathers from me several times. The first time I tried not to accept her money but she insisted on paying me. Fly fishermen will use the herl, the thin stuff on the train feathers, for making flies. Of course then there is that new trend of wearing feathers in your hair too...Peacock feathered headbands could be cool. My art teacher asked me if her friend could rent some peafowl for her wedding, but I declined on that...That would just worry me too much but I am sure you could get money from things like that. From time to time I see a lot of beautiful dresses covered in peacock feathers.
Here is an example of a peacock dress: http://buzzaurus.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/peacock_dress.jpg
I get a dollar for each train feather, so can you imagine all the money you would get if someone came to you wanting to make a dress like that!?

When I first got peafowl I thought I would be keeping all of the train feathers, but just one male in a season will shed 100 or more train feathers, so I already have 2 vases stuffed with feathers and that is even more than I want. I have used a few for my own personal art projects for school just to get rid of some. I see a lot of peafowl feathers for sale at Native American Powwows but those are normally dyed feathers which is something else you could do...

There are a bunch of things you could do with just their feathers if you really wanted to prove they can be money makers...Now I am thinking you could make a peacock feather purse...

Also if you raise unique birds then you will probably get a lot of attention...Like maybe you could be known for the best patterned pieds or purest green peafowl, etc. Wolfgang Mennig in Germany is certainly known for pure green peafowl and most green peafowl imports come from him. Like deerman said though if that peahen is a pure Java, Burmese, Indo-Chinese whatever then it probably would be very good to try and pair her with a pure green peacock of the same subspecies. There are just soooo many spaldings being bred and so many spaldings out there, but I think it is hard to find those pure greens and I personally would be more interested in buying pure green peafowl that you can't find just anywhere then getting spaldings you can find at a lot of places.

Good luck!