Spring is here....according to Georgie

Spring is here....At least Georgie thinks so. Georgie is my 5 year old India Blue peacock. His mate Lucia is pretty not not as "pretty" as Georgie.

Georgie thinks sunshine is a reason for dancing. Maybe he's right...

Here is Georgie strutting around the peafowl yard.

He may be king of the roost.... but if he has a chance to dance he doesn't care who's on the purch. This is Purpleboy. He's a 1 year old purple peacock. He's got no train feathers yet but he does dance. At least until Georgie catches him trying to steal the show.

Peacocks take 3 years to get their train. They are actually back feathers not tail feathers as most people think. They use their tail feathers to push up and fan out their back feathers.

Purpleboy will be looking for a new home soon. Georgie, Purpleboy and Lucia share their yard with Major Benji and Mapps. Benji and Mapps are my purple pair and Purpleboys parents. Watch for pictures of them.

Rain Rain Go Away Dance

The rain finnally stop today. Nice to see that it hasn't dampened Georgie's spirit. He's my 5 year old India Blue......dancing for all he's worth today.

Hope to get some pics of him this weekend and add.

Important Housing tip

Learned an important housing tip today. Make sure your roof is securely fastened. I didn't do as good a job of securing the metal roofing panels to the second pen as I did with the first.

I was fortunate to find 12ft panels when I built the first one. Unfortunately I picked barn red as the color....it looks great in the yard. Well, they stopped stocking them at Home Depot and Lowes so I wound up with 8footers on the second pen and had to overlap panels. My other option would have been to go with green 12footers.

Well one of the 8ft panels flew off in a storm last night. It's been raining for day.......Fortunately the peas don't like rain and didn't make any attempt to escape.

IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE BETWEEN FUNCTIONALITY AND COLOR........DON'T PIC COLOR....

Live and learn......

What I've already done

I started raising peafowl two years ago. I did a lot of research on the internet and found a design for a pen. I took an old 10 x 10 Ft dog run and added a roof. I then added a 400 sq Ft aviary attached to it.

This I made out of 8ft posts, 2 x 4s, welded wire and aviary netting. Add a couple extra boards, some pvc piping to hold up the netting and I was all set.

I found a breeder here in Kentucky and purchase my first trio. Georgie is the male India Blue, Lucia is the India Blue hen and I also got Mapp a purple hen. None of these have the black shoulder gene but they are all beautiful and very colorful...Even the hens.

That year Lucia laid 4 eggs and hatched them just fine.

The following year I added another 10 x 10 dog run with a roof to the other end of the aviary. I went back and purchased Major Benji a 2 year old purple male.

I split my two pairs the blues on one side and the purples on the other. That year only Lucia had chicks. Since then Mapp (purple hen) has laid but not set on any eggs. A friend took some of the eggs and put them under a chicken and hatched 2 chicks for me. I tried to hatch some eggs but with little success.

I kept one of the purple chicks that turned out to be a male and he's with the blue pair. Since this is his second summer he's not got any tail feathers yet but he is starting to display like the "big" boys. It's cute but he won't be able to stay much longer as Georgie doesn't really like having him in his pen.

Waiting for spring and egg laying to start.

This is Georgie my first Peacock. He's an India Blue male 3 years old. His tail feathers (they're actually back feathers - more on this later) don't show off very well here but I'll add more pics.

But check out the blue and the crest. He's about the size of a turkey. Pretty big when you have to catch him to do checkups and worming.

First post

A couple years ago I saw the coolest lawn and garden accessory. As I drove home one day I noticed that the house on the corner had a beautiful statue of a peacock standing on the railing post. Well I thought it was a statue......then it moved.

Realizing it was real and noticed a couple days later there were two peafowl (a boy and a girl) on the porch roof of the same house.

Got me thinking and doing research on the internet for more info. Imagine a full grown peacock struding along in your backyard or perching and posing for everyone to see.