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Post by garrett on Aug 16, 2011 1:24:10 GMT -5
anybody raise em?are they good pets?benefits of ownership?pics?
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Aug 16, 2011 7:20:48 GMT -5
I've never raised Peafowl, but I have two good friends who have had small flocks for many years. It is my understanding that they can be very noisy, so if you have close neighbours, this may not be the fowl for you.
Chickens? I had chickens, turkeys and ducks for about 14 years. Started off with someone's cast off old hens then bought feedstore chicks for a few years. Eventually got into rare breeds and began showing. Benefits? Cheap entertainment. We would sit and watch the ones allowed outside for hours as they romped and played on the lawn. Also Fresh eggs with dark yellow yolks and whites that don't run across the pan. Fresh chicken for the dinnerplate. And let's not forget (well rotted ) manure for your garden. Drawbacks? Predator kills; the price of grain.
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Post by garrett on Aug 16, 2011 9:12:49 GMT -5
they is pretty.somma da roosters especially..........
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Post by gulfcoastguy on Aug 18, 2011 12:30:16 GMT -5
Peafowl are very noisy. So are guineas but guineas also keep the tick population down. Fowl are food not pets though.
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Post by garrett on Aug 18, 2011 12:37:14 GMT -5
no fowl friends?grins
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Aug 18, 2011 13:13:18 GMT -5
About 10 years ago, Poultry were all the rage on the internet. Forums everywhere and lots of people posted pics of their Poultry Pals. I've seen pics of overweight meat birds that were no longer able to walk and sat in homemade chicken wheelchairs. I've also seen chickens as housepets, wearing diapers like you'd put on a dog or a monkey You can make a pet out of almost anything. Anyone remember Pet Rocks? I always had a pet (or two) out of every breed. Usually, they would be one of the breeding stock. They had names and were handled much more than the other animals/fowl. However, should they not live up to our expectations as far as reproduction, they were (often, not always) replaced by someone who did. Hence the Thelma and Louise goat sausage pizzas....or the Bubba's Beef Burgers.... On the other hand, Purdy my Birdie (White Crested Polish Bantam) sired many, went to many a poultry show and passed of old age.
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Post by garrett on Aug 18, 2011 13:58:25 GMT -5
was they real expensive to maintain.?
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Aug 18, 2011 14:19:30 GMT -5
chickens? I guess that depends on how many you want and what you want them for? You have a lush property and a climate which would allow them to free range year round. Say you had six dual purpose chickens to supply you with eggs that free ranged on your property. Add a few table scraps and fresh water every day and they cost little beyond your initial purchase and a shed to house them in at night. If you had 6 eggs a day x 7 days of the week, you have lots of eggs for eating. You might even have enough to take some to work and sell Now I say dual purpose because they have more meat on their bones than a leghorn which was bred primarily to lay eggs, lots and lots of eggs. But a dual purpose, should it not lay very well, can easily serve you Sunday dinner.
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Post by garrett on Aug 18, 2011 14:20:54 GMT -5
are home grown chickies moh beddah tasting than store chickies?
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Aug 18, 2011 14:28:55 GMT -5
There is nothing better! I miss them.
Now we also raised meat birds every couple of years. We didn't let them run outside like the layers. Instead, we kept them in a large common pen and I gave them grain as well as fresh grass clippings every day. Our lawn was about 2 acres, so I could cut a section every day to feed to them. That way, they didn't build a lot of muscle which becomes tough, yet they got the nutrition and the colour from the vegetation to give that nice yellow to the meat and the eggs. (Yes, meat birds will lay but they don't lay regularly like a bird bred for egg laying.)
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Post by garrett on Aug 18, 2011 14:32:25 GMT -5
sounds like an art science to raising em fer meat then?
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Aug 18, 2011 20:49:44 GMT -5
You can just leave them in a pen and feed them a lot of grain, but that costs money. Also, with the meat birds, too much feed like that often causes heart failure. Nothing worse than having a 12 lb chicken die of a heart attack after all that work and money put into raising it.
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Post by garrett on Aug 18, 2011 20:56:07 GMT -5
i never thought about coding a chicken.....lol
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Post by gulfcoastguy on Aug 18, 2011 21:24:15 GMT -5
Breath breath, pump, pump......I'm clear, you clear all clear zap!
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Post by garrett on Aug 18, 2011 21:49:53 GMT -5
Breath breath, pump, pump......I'm clear, you clear all clear zap! grins
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Post by marielouise on Oct 19, 2011 1:30:18 GMT -5
peacocks can be heard for at least a mile and half---- that's how far a certain neighbor lives from us that complained about Pretty Boy Floyd especially during mating season! other than that they do make an excellent watch animal! Floyd put more strangers back into their cars than the dog did. But back then we had a overly friendly dog. We miss our peafowl but the fireants got so bad here , they ground nest and the fire ants actually killed the hatchlings as they were trying to hatch, also the pea hens would end up being terribly bitten while sitting . , they hide their nests so it was all but impossible to find them before the ants did.
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Post by garrett on Oct 19, 2011 9:21:47 GMT -5
pbf?smiles.i like that name........a manly peacock?lol
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Post by w8n4dave on Oct 19, 2011 11:47:56 GMT -5
We have a 3 chickens and a rooster , my brother in law has pigeons , we used to till our neighborly friendly hawk ate them all. Now we just have chickens rabbits, 1 dog, 1 cat, well the cat seems to think she is a chicken tho
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Post by tastyofhasty on Oct 30, 2011 11:13:03 GMT -5
"Benefits? Cheap entertainment. We would sit and watch the ones allowed outside for hours as they romped and played on the lawn. Also Fresh eggs with dark yellow yolks and whites that don't run across the pan. Fresh chicken for the dinnerplate. And let's not forget (well rotted ) manure for your garden. Drawbacks? Predator kills; the price of grain."
Yup, I can agree with all that. We just have one rooster, two hens, getting kind of old since iirc we got them as chicks in 2004. Speckled Sussex. They free range every day, we feed them with "wild bird food" from Ace Hardware, and watching what they peck out of the mix, seems they really like the sunflower seeds ... so we bought a 25-lb bag of straight sunflower seed of which we've been feeding them with an extra couple handfuls every day. I suppose I could GROW sunflowers for seed, now I know they like it so much.
They are a major PIA, though, if they can get into a garden area with nice fresh empty dirt, or what seems to THEM to be nice fresh empty dirt (even though it's got little plants coming up in it) they and their BIG FEET can make major destruction really fast! Means the whole garden area needs fence just to keep the chickens out.
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Post by garrett on Mar 11, 2012 0:48:58 GMT -5
smiles
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bella
New Member
Posts: 6
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Post by bella on Apr 29, 2012 12:23:32 GMT -5
I miss my chickens, roosters, ducks...... Raised them many years ago, but they were a lot of fun. Followed me around the yard like pets, which made it quite difficult when it came time to put them in the freezer. Didn't name most of them for that reason. We had mallards and Pekins...had to give one mallard away because he was so rough on the Pekin hen, poor girl. When he left, she sat by the house for a few hours; wouldn't move...maybe she missed her buddy??? They never seemed to bother the garden until one duck decided she loved the cherry tomatoes. ;D But we had plenty to share. One of my roosters; a dorking, (I named him Dork) ;D used to come up on the porch, and crow. Would've lived in the house if I'd let him. Today; the neighbors rooster is crowing non-stop. Hubby says cuz it's dark & gloomy, he thinks its morning or evening...don't remember mine doing that.
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Apr 29, 2012 16:53:44 GMT -5
Ah yes, Crowing. It can be a nuisance.
In summer, they would start about 3:30 a.m. It's not bad when you've got one male, but I had many. But like everything annoying (fog horns on water, trains, traffic, sirens) one can learn to tune out the pre-dawn crowing to an extent.
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bella
New Member
Posts: 6
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Post by bella on Apr 29, 2012 17:33:48 GMT -5
They don't bother me; I kinda enjoy listening to them...a part of the good old country life. One of my roosters used to get to crowing at night because the light from the yardlight would shine into his coop. Poor guy must've been confused.
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