And now she has emus too
This is what I want though. No space for them at the moment as our current lot is too small. That, and they cost FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. LOL.
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/assorted_rare_peafowl.html
And now she has emus too
I used to keep pea fowl, but I never paid $500 for one. That’s the kind of price you might pay for a pure white male adult. I used to buy them at St. Martin’s Fair — the last street fair in Wisconsin where live animals are allowed to be sold. It’s been nearly 20 years, so I don’t even know if they still have the live animals there. They used to operated on the first Monday of every month in the town of Franklin, south of Milwaukee.
I’ve purchased pea fowl from fertilized eggs to adults. We only got a 50% hatch on the fertilized eggs. I’ve paid as much as $65 for a full grown Blue India (common) peacock. Pea hens are generally cheaper because they are not as pretty. I got lots and lots of eggs which I used in making zucchini bread (fabulous) but was never able to hatch my own chicks.
Either the eggs were not fertile (hard to tell), or the parents (or a marauding racoon, or skunk) broke the eggs before they hatched. I’ve tried an incubator, as well as leaving them with their mothers. The only time I was able to hatch the eggs was when I gave them to a friend who put them with her chickens. However, chickens have diseases that are fatal to peafowl so that is not a good idea.
Pea fowl make terrific “watch birds” because they scream a blood chilling “rape, rape” whenever a stranger comes on the property. My peafowl knew the sound of family cars and never made a peep. But if anyone else came round, they set up a real fuss. Luckily we live on 12 acres and have large plots of land all around us. Since my little flock died off, however, 16 houses have been built on the 60 acres next door. They might not appreciate it if I decided to keep pea fowl again.
Besides, all my birds were very bad birds. They were supposed to stroll around my garden and look pretty. However, they would refuse to come out of my barn until dusk; and then they would just eat my blooming flowers and poop on my porch. They also couldn’t seem to fly up into my trees to save themselves from marauding foxes and coyotes.
And the males would fight with each other. The females also would pick on the males. I think a couple of them died from broken hearts because they were not loved by their peers. I learned first hand what the term “henpecked” meant. My poor “Danny Boy” (named after the man who sold him to me) kept having his top knot pecked off by a couple of nasty-tempered hens. Upon reflection I decided that the hens didn’t like him because he was very close to me and would sit on my arm. They thought he was too “human” and would not accept him as a bird.