Here at the farm my peafowl love to get out and explore.
Peafowl are very social birds - they travel in groups, enjoy foraging, and often play together. They are also very loyal and tend to stay where they are well-fed and well-protected. My peacocks and peahens live in a very safe and comfortable pen outside my stable, where they get lots of attention from visitors. Yesterday, I let them out to roam the property - they walked around the stable complex, through the gardens, and even perched on fences and boulders. At the end of the day, they were all led back to their familiar enclosure, where I know they are safe and sound.
Enjoy these photos.
I keep all my birds in large, protected enclosures because of the predators that sometime wander through the property, such as coyotes. On this day, I decided to give the peafowl a little freedom to explore. Here is one peacock just outside the pens.
Where one goes, others are sure to follow.
Here is a mature male with his gorgeous tail feathers behind him. A mature peacock can have up to 200 feathers in his tail, which can weigh about a half pound during mating season.
As beautiful as peafowl are, they don’t make very melodious sounds. Peafowl have 11 different calls, with most of the vocalizing made by the peacocks. And, with their sharp eyesight, peafowl are quick to see predators and call out alarms. Oftentimes, I can hear them from across the farm.
This handsome peacock grew up with the chickens, so he likes to stroll down the carriage road to visit them.
Here’s one hiding under some foliage of an evergreen…
But hard to hide his long lustrous tail. The tail feathers grow to five feet long when the make is mature – that’s longer than the bird’s body.
Peafowl are members of the pheasant family. There are two Asiatic species – the blue or Indian peafowl native to India and Sri Lanka, and the green peafowl originally from Java and Burma, and one African species, the Congo peafowl from African rain forests.
I have both juveniles and adults. Within a year, peacocks are almost completely mature. Two year olds resemble adult males, but their tails are still short and need time to develop like this one. They become sexually active around the age of three. Peahens develop faster than peacocks and can mate as early as one.
Like many birds, peafowl enjoy roosting at higher levels. In the wild, this keeps them safe from predators at night. Here is one peacock up on the peafowl fence just watching all the activities.
Here’s one of the “blue boys” on a boulder. Peafowl also have acute hearing, but can be poor at discerning from what direction certain sounds originate.
Peafowl are very curious. I think this one is eager to go into the stable to visit the horses.
Both male and female peafowl have a fan-shaped crest on their heads called a corona. It may take up to one year for a corona to reach full size.
Here’s a trio walking through the daffodil bed near the allée of lindens. Peafowl are ground feeders. They do most of their foraging in the early morning and evening. As omnivores, they eat insects, plants, grains, and small creatures.
These males preferred the comforts of the pen, venturing only to the adjacent goose enclosure. I am glad these males get along.
Peafowl are smart, docile and adaptable birds. They are also quite clever.
Here is a male showing off his tail feathers to a nearby female. Mating season typically runs from March to October. The male’s neck muscles stiffen to allow for the elegant positioning of its head during the courtship dance.
Even while socializing and grazing, peacocks are alert and aware of all that occurs around them.
Peafowl are happiest when living in small groups. They often walk around following each other. White peacocks are the result of leucism or albinism. While leucistic white peacocks are far more common than albino peacocks, both types are rare.
Here is a curious female coming up to see the camera. Female peafowl are more muted in color and are usually more camouflaged to blend into their surroundings.
Whenever I tour the farm I always call out to them… and oftentimes, they answer. After a day of exploration around the farm, these stunning birds are all led back to their safe enclosure.
Here's a short video of one of my white peacocks doing the mating dance. This display is known as “train-rattling.” The ability to fan out the train is done with very strong and specialized muscles.
My large, half-acre vegetable garden is ready for planting.
Having a really good vegetable garden where I can grow lots of fresh, delicious, and nutritious produce is extremely important to me. I share the vegetables with my daughter, my grandchildren, and other family and friends. Last week, the beds were cleaned, topped with an even layer of Miracle-Gro Organic Raised Bed & Garden Soil, and raked perfectly for planting.
Here are some photos.
It’s spring and time to turn our attention to preparing the vegetable garden for the season. Soil is delivered and dropped onto the carriage road near the garden gate. This Miracle-Gro Organic Raised Bed & Garden Soil is already complete with nutrients, but I also add Miracle-Gro Organic All-Purpose Plant Food.
The fertilizer is mixed thoroughly with our Kubota tractor backhoe bucket and loads of soil are transported to the garden.
My crew uses the back of our trusted Polaris off-road vehicle to load and unload soil. Everyone at the farm uses these vehicles every day – to move soil, potted plants, tools, and supplies, etc.
Next, Chhiring shovels the soil into the wheelbarrow – it’s a very focused and efficient production line process.
As each wheelbarrow is filled, it is taken to a specific bed and unloaded.
Appropriately sized clumps are dropped to top dress all the fed beds.
Some beds are already filled with plants, but others are cleared and ready for fresh layers of soil.
The beds in this garden range in size from about 5′ by 10′ to 8′ by 70′. Here’s Phurba going back for another wheelbarrow full for this bed.
Meantime, Cesar begins raking the soil across the bed with a hard rake.
A three inch layer is spread over each bed carefully and evenly.
José tackles another bed.
The beds are beautiful to look at even before any planting is done.
In this center bed along the side fencing are lots of planted peas – one section for shelling peas, which need to be removed from their pods before eating, and another for edible pods, which can be eaten whole, such as our snap peas. They are best grown on supports to keep them off the ground and away from pests and diseases.
Here, soil is placed around my rhubarb plants. My rhubarb did nicely over the winter out here in the garden. When keeping rhubarb during the cold season, be sure it is well fed and maintained, to ensure good health and productivity.
At the corners of each bed I planted herbs. Phurba grooms whatever herbs survived the cold season and removes any dead plants.
This bed is filled with tulips. These colorful flowers will be ready to cut and enjoy in a few weeks.
I planted several beds of tulips last November. They require a sustained dormant period of cold temperatures in order to stimulate root development. I’m excited to see them bloom.
This bed is planted mostly with currants. True currants are tiny berries that grow in clusters on shrubs belonging to the Ribes family. Some of the varieties include ‘Rovada,’ ‘Red Lake,’ and ‘Jonkheer Van Tets.’
And remember the saffron planted here by my friend, Hannah Milman? In January, I covered the growing saffron with wire fencing to protect the underground bulbs from curious creatures. The foliage grows well in between the wire.
And here is my garlic bed. Fall is the ideal time to plant garlic. Planting then allows the bulbs to establish good roots before winter, leading to larger and more flavorful cloves by the summer harvest. This garlic looks good so far!
In the foreground is one of my strawberry beds. Strawberries are perennial plants that naturally enter a dormant state during winter. Dormancy allows the plant to conserve energy, protect the roots, and prepare buds for fruiting in the next season. There’s still lots of planting before all the beds are full, but everything is off to a great start!
It’s always exciting to have babies at my farm - especially when they're cute, fluffy chicks.
Right now I have more than 50 precious chicks in residence. The peeps came from eggs laid here at my farm and then incubated and hatched inside my "chick room" at the stable. All of them are healthy, alert, and very curious. They will remain in a large, heated cage until they are big enough to move outdoors to their own enclosure and coop, and then into the chicken yard with the other adults.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
It’s that time of year when I have lots of eggs – all laid by my healthy hens here at the farm.
The eggs are placed into an incubator where they are safe from other birds and closely monitored until they hatch. Chicken eggs take 21-days. While the eggs incubate, they are automatically turned once a day, 45-degrees each way, back and forth during this period.
At about day-7 and again at day-14, Helen “candles” each one, meaning she holds each egg against a light, turning it slowly, to observe the embryo inside. Fertilized, growing embryos can be identified by visible blood vessels, a large dark spot or filled space in the egg. This egg looks to have a developing chick inside.
From days 17 to 21, they’re placed into this hatching cabinet, where it is still warm. The eggs are spaced apart in sections where it is safe and where eggs cannot roll during the hatching process.
And then the wait for pipping begins, when a chick starts to crack its egg. This process starts around day 19. The chick breaks through the shell to breathe air.
And one by one, chicks emerge. They remain here until they are dry.
After the chicks hatch, they are placed into this cage in the same room. The room is kept very warm and the chicks are checked often. Baby chicks need constant monitoring until they are at least a month old.
The chicks are kept in a draft-free brooder with appropriate red heat lamps to keep them warm. Chicks require an air temperature of 95 degrees during the first week, 90 degrees the second week, and so on – going down by around five degrees per week until they’re ready to transition to the coop.
And here is just one of the chicks – nothing short of adorable.
These youngsters are less than a week old, but they are already very mobile and exploring their surroundings.
The chicks are fed organic chick starter for the first six to eight weeks. Starter feed is a protein dense variety of chicken feed designed to meet a chick’s dietary requirements. Several feeding dishes are placed into the cage.
A chick should never have to “wait in line”. On average, about 10-chicks can consume approximately one-pound of chick starter feed per day.
Fresh, clean water is also always provided. In fact, every chick is personally shown where their food and water sources are, so they know where to find them.
Chickens are generally gentle, shy birds, but because these are being raised around a lot of activity, they will be well-socialized and friendly.
Chickens have their own personalities – some are more active or more curious than others.
These babies get lots of visitors throughout the day, but ideally, they should be checked at least twice daily for food, water, and temperature needs.
These chicks all have clear eyes and are very alert.
One can typically identify roosters from hens around four to 12 weeks of age. Right now, they’re all just sweet, charming peeps.
In general, chickens are quite vocal. They make around 30 different calls to communicate with each other, expressing everything from “I am hungry” to “there’s a predator nearby.”
Chicks grow quickly and are quick to follow behaviors from other flock members.
These peeps are also very social and where one goes, the others follow.
This chick is wide awake now, but chicks sleep quite a bit – between 18 and 20 hours a day when they’re this young. They need the rest for growth and development.
I’ve raised many different chicken breeds and varieties over the years. I am so happy with this group – they are all strong, good eaters, and will be great additions to my flock.
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