12-18-2015
I got some good news today. I will now be the United Peafowl Association's Magazine editor! If you have any articles/pictures for the magazine, feel free to send that information to me for publication! Also, don't forget to join the UPA to recive the magazine!
Also, I finally got around to uploading another peafowl video to YouTube so check out my video page for video #4.
11-13-2015
All of my peafowl are fine I have just been busy with school so I haven't been able to update the site as much as I would have liked. Some good news - I am one of the United Peafowl Association's Board of Directors! I get to help with the behind the scenes stuff in the association! So if you see ways that we could improve the UPA, please feel free to contact me and let me know. We want to keep the UPA alive which has been difficult due to the cost and getting people to serve on the board, but we are working hard to bring the association back to its full glory.
9-10-2015
I have been pretty busy still. Trying to find the balance between college and peafowl and other interests has been difficult for me. Hopefully someday I will figure out a good way to find time for everything without it being overwhelming. The Imperator peachick and the India Blue split peachick are doing really well. I was planning on selling the India Blue split chick, but we all love her so much that I might as well keep her. The United Peafowl Association Convention is next week and I have already paid to go. I am certainly ready to go do something! I have lots of things that I plan on bringing: A watercolor painting I did for the UPA auction, my camera, and peafowl themed outfits for each day. Phil, the local peafowl breeder that gave me my Imperator peachick, will be a guest speaker at the convention so that is exciting. I have not met many of the UPA members in person, but I am sure that I somewhat know many of them somehow such as through peafowl forums and from their websites, etc. The UPA invited me to be on their Board of Directors, but I am not on the BOD yet and who knows if I will be excepted or not. I really want to help make the UPA's magazine Peafowl Today - after all I am going to college for graphic design and that would be great for my resume. So I am not too sure if I will be able to be that involved or not, but I am still excited to go to my first UPA convetion after wanting to go to one for years!
7-27-2015
I have been pretty busy with summer classes comming to a close and I still have a lot of daunting work ahead of me and that is the reason why I have been fairly absent on Backyard Chickens and on this site. Several things have happened since my last update. Not too long after I recieved the Imperator peachick I hatched out one of my own peafowl eggs. The peachick now keeps the Imperator chick company although the Imperator is not very interested in the other peachick and would rather have my company. The Imperator peachick is growing very well. I was unable to fix one of his crooked toes but the other toes look good. He is getting green neck feathers and he has a nice crest growing. He has wonderful personality. He likes to display and try to make a peacock call, which for him just sounds like a high pitched sqeal. I have never heard a peachick attempt to call like an adult so it is quite interesting to hear him try. The younger peachick is a bit more timid and is imprinted but not as strongly as the Imperator. Anyways, I am off to Backyard Chickens to write more of a lengthy update.
6-8-2015
On June 4th I recived a 3 day old Imperator peachick from another local peafowl breeder who was un-able to care for the peachick's curled toes because he was about to leave town. So now the Bamboo Peacock finally has a green peafowl and now has a total of 8 peafowl! I am very excited to finally have a green peafowl and hopefully this means that there will be more green peafowl articles in the future based off of first hand experiance! Check out the bottom of the Peafowl page to see a photo of the Imperator peachick.
5-30-15
You know how yesterday I said that I would have to wait for extra peachicks before I can buy some? I might be able to get the peachicks this comming week!! Eeeeppp!!! I am so happy and excited! Now comes the worrying...Will they stay grow up healthy and strong? Will I be able to tame them down? Will they be everything I want and more? Will I be able to pick out a pair somehow? Will they like the aviary I have planned for them once they are bigger? We will see! If it turns out I can't get them next week I am certain the time that I will have to wait for 2 chicks to be available will be very minor.
5-29-15
I was planning on adding 2 new birds to my flock this Friday, but after a call to the breeder I found out he does not have enough peachicks yet to fill my friend's order and because she ordered before me and is ordering a lot, etc I must wait for the breeder to get extras. I have been waiting a loong time, as in years (not on the breeder but to get the chance to get these birds), but what is a little more of a wait!? I have made it this long haven't I? I am excited but at this point I have been through so many ups and downs waiting to get this particular bird that now I feel fairly calm and chill to wait. As far as my flock, or in peafowl terms, muster goes, they are all doing well. It has been very rainy this week and so the boys have had limited oportunities to display. The rye grass that I planted in the aviary for the winter died a while ago and thus started my quest to find a good summer grass for our summer heat. Much to my dismay, I got no results from some name brand grass seed. Then I tried millet grass seed from the feed store and it took off in around 5 days! I was very impressed. Now I am hoping all the rain does not drown out the new grass. It seems that this year several people are having issues with their peahens becoming egg bound - which is when the peahen has trouble laying an egg and if not helped she could die within 48 hours. Some of my peahens have had a bit of trouble passing some of their eggs but it never got very serious. On days when I see their tail up like they are going to lay, I make sure I have multiple sources of calcium out for them. Speaking of eggs, I have 14 in the incubator right now. I don't expect some of the older eggs to develop, but keep checking back here to see how it is going.
5-5-15
I have been pretty busy trying to prioratize things! I don't have a whole lot of time off from college before my summer classes start unfortunately and I still need to make preperations for some possible new additions to my flock. Today is the day the eggs in the incubator go into lockdown. The thing is, I started with 7 eggs in the incubator. After a week two had to be thrown out because they were no good. Now I believe that only one of the 5 remaining eggs is good but I am leaving them all in there just incase. I highly doubt the others are good though. Anyways if this peachick makes it and hatches out I will be very busy caring for this lone peachick. When you hatch more than one peachick it is easier because they all have each other and you don't have to worry about them not getting the interaction they need to be happy and healthy. When only one peachick hatches you then have to spend a lot of time with it because you are all that peachick has. This will make it so difficult for me to sell the peachick because I will develop a close bond with it. So we will see how things go in the next 3 days as I wait for the egg to hatch. By the way I have ideas for new articles but I can't say when you will be seeing them as really right now I should be outside doing yard work! So I have to go but stay tuned!
4-19-15
Frosty my four year old Spalding white peacock won 3rd place in the April 2015 Peafowl Photo Contest! Frosty is my second peacock to win a contest so I am very proud of my winning peacocks, but I am proud of all of my birds no matter how much or how little they accomplish! To see the 3rd place winning photo of Frosty, see the Peafowl Page. In addition to that good news, I candled the 7 (yes I added one more egg in to the incubator) eggs tonight. So far I can see veins in 3 eggs. 1 egg is hard to see because of the pores so I can't tell with that one, 2 look as though they have a blood ring (AKA they are no good), and the last egg looks compleatly clear. I am still keeping all eggs in the incubator just incase, but hopefully the ones that I saw veins in will continue to develop without issue.
4-13-15
Today at 7:30 PM I set 6 peafowl eggs in the incubator! At least 3 of my 4 peahens contributed to this group of eggs and any 3 of my peacocks could be the father or there could be fathers. So there should be a good variety of peachicks! Stay tuned to see how my first hatch of the year goes. Around May 8th I should have peachicks hatching or hatched and then from there I will be selling them once they can propperly eat and drink on their own. Hopefully the eggs will develop well. I have seen big improvement in egg quality after increasing my peahen's calcium intake. I have a good feeling about hatching this year so hopefully all will go well.
4-9-15
Snow White was laying in March but the other peahens were not. This week I have been getting more eggs and I think 2-3 of my 4 peahens are laying right now. I will collect around 4-6 eggs and then start incubating them so around 30 days from now I might have peachicks if all goes well and I get to incubate the eggs. I remember earlier this year I was so antsy for May to come so that I could get green peafowl with a BYC member. Well, now that May is getting closer and closer, I have to find time to fit in finishing the new aviary. I know I know this has taken me litterally forever. I ought to put sticky notes everywhere to remind me! All the work will certainly be worth it especially since Peep definately needs to be moved into the new aviary which he will share with the young greens for a while. New Article: Dust Bathing
3-24-15
Now that the weather is warming up I am working more on my plants in and around the aviary. Do you have any tropical or tropical looking plants that you enjoy growing in zone 9 or lower? If so send me an email and let me know what plant I should try growing!
3-18-15
The second egg of the year is fertile so I am guessing all the other ones I have been getting are fertile as well! It won't be long before I will start incubating some eggs. I am waiting to get a good batch of fresh eggs to incubate them all. For now I am testing these first eggs for fertility and then eating them. If you are local and want peafowl eggs to hatch I will certainly sell you some. I should be hatching peachicks as well so as always keep checking the For Sale page.
There is a new article that talks about how to free-range peafowl: Free-Ranging
3-5-15
Surprise the 2015 breeding season has begun a month early here! I got the first egg of the year March 2nd and the next day I saw Alto and Snow White mate. You know what this means? If you are interested in buying eggs or peachicks from me keep frequently checking back to my For Sale page. I am only selling locally, but perhaps you might want to take a vacation down to Florida and pick up some new birds while you are here? This year I will do some hatching but since I am not sure where my second incubator is, I might have to sell a few eggs as well and I will entertain selling eggs but I would like to keep some to hatch and sell peachicks. Exciting things are happening here at the Bamboo Peacock as a new aviary slowly but surely goes up, the current aviary gets some fixing up, and the breeding season rushes in with a flash of soft, bright feathers.
2-25-15
Look at the update below for more information on what I am up to. I am just updating this to say that I finished the article I started yesterday.
New Article: Building a Covered Shelter
2-24-15
I am working on a new article about building a covered shelter for peafowl. Recently we built a covered shelter for the new aviary so things are starting to come together nicely finally. We still need to get a door for the aviary and put up the netting, but that is not so bad. I am hoping to get some young green peafowl with another lady this year. I am excited to meet her and get these magnificent birds together! Hopefully all will go well and I will get my first green peafowl. So far my chances are much better than they ever have been. I can see breeding season is almost here. Today all three peacocks were displaying and shaking their feathers at the peahens. It won't be too long!!
2-6-15
It is official! From what I can tell, I appear to have the most peafowl articles when compared to the United Peafowl Association's website as well as other peafowl breeder websites. I am not counting bird forums of course, because those are more of topics and posts rather than articles. I will say forums will always have me beat, but you don't have to sift through posts when reading my articles. So the UPA has 27 articles, and I have 35. Yippie! Oh and take a look at this wayy better formated text. I got a right indent but not a left one. Hey, eventually I will figure it out! Now to go indent everything.
New Article: Birds that Can Be Kept With Peafowl
1-26-15
There was a confusion on my part about shipping. For 2015 I will not be shipping birds! I thought I could, but I might do better just selling local for now. You can still drive down and pick up birds or have someone pick some up for you though.
Due to a recent surge of people wanting green peafowl, I wrote an article to inform people of things I have learned about what you need to know before you get green peafowl. I don't have green peafowl, but I have been learning for years about them and I don't want people getting into raising them without knowing that they are in fact different from rasing India Blue variety peafowl. Here is the article so go check it out: Ready for Green Peafowl?
1-12-15
I got a bit annoyed that I saw the subject of de-voicing a peacock being brought up by someone new to peafowl. I decided that I would write an article a bit about peacock noise in general. I want people to know that just because you can take away their voice, that doesn't mean that you should and you shouldn't consider that an option. A better option is to sell your peacock. If you are really attached to him, then if you really care about him you will let him live somewhere where he can be allowed to have his voice and use it.
1-1-15
Happy New Year!!! Can you believe my website has been up for almost 2 years!? Wow! A new year means new information and hopefully a new pen and new birds, if I am lucky!
New Article: Peacocks Fighting
Also don't forget that 2015 means a new breeding season. Let me know if you are interested in buying peafowl eggs or peachicks. Tell your friends!
Oh and one other thing, you will notice that I have added archive pages showing past year's news. So now this news page will only display news for the current year - and in fact I might even just show one entry at a time on here...I will have to think about that.
