peachicks | jmgoyder

Tips on raising a baby peacock

by jmgoyder

As most of you know, a little over three weeks ago I found a newly hatched baby peacock outside, apparently abandoned. I knew that the peahens were nesting here and there but I hadn’t discovered any eggs or nests and two of the peahens seem to have disappeared. They are very good mothers usually but very unwise layers and I surmise they have laid in the paddocks and all of the eggs, chicks and maybe even these two mothers have been killed by foxes.

So I have been raising Gutsy9 myself and he and I are totally imprinted on each other now. He is a pied, so half white and half blue so it will be interesting to watch him grow up. At night he sleeps in a box in the veranda and during the day he sits on my shoulder. Every afternoon I take him out when I feed all of the others and he is less frightened of the adult peas than they are of him. They tend to peck at him a bit but they are slowly getting used to him.

But raising a lone chick of any sort does present a few challenges if you are a human so here are a few tips:

1. Do not take a baby peacock to a restaurant inside your shirt and continually stroke him because it will make you look like you have a breast fetish.
2. Do not allow a baby peacock to kiss you on the lips if he has just had a dinner of mealworms.
3. Do not take a baby peacock to an appointment with a counsellor.
4. Do not succumb to a baby peacock’s 5am crying, get him out of his box, go back to bed and let him sleep on your head because you might find something odd in your hair when you wake up.
5. Do not let a baby peacock sleep on your shoulder with his butt in your face; turn him around so his face is next to yours.
6. Do not put a mirror next to you so you can check what a baby peacock is doing on your shoulder because you will realize that you are developing a double chin.

I hope this has been helpful!

Animal Family Friendship Wings

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What do baby peacocks have for Christmas dinner?

by jmgoyder

Mealworms – YUM!

Gutsy9 was in heaven!

Animal Wings

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A hot Christmas Day

by jmgoyder

The first picture is of my nephew and niece over here with my brother from the Solomon Islands for Christmas. As you can see Gutsy9 was a hit! The second is of my mother and brother talking to Anthony (who is unfortunately out of the shot), with an ecstatic harpist in the background.

It is Boxing Day here and warming up to be another stinking hot day. Christmas Day was, as predicted, 40C so I am very glad we had cold crayfish for lunch. I always make Anthony’s mother’s cocktail sauce which consists of cream, tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce and lemon juice – yum. I had purchased four enormous cooked crays and my hands are now covered in little cuts from peeling them but it was worth it.

There were only four of us – Anthony, Ming, my mother and me. We usually do a bigger family thing at my mothers on Christmas Eve, but Christmas Day has always been fairly quiet which is the way we like it. We sat in our only air-conditioned room and ate the crayfish cocktail on our laps. Then Ming served pavolova with cream and bananas and we watched an animated film called Brave that Ming had chosen for the day. Anthony wasn’t coping well with either the heat or the air conditioning and he was extremely immobile but I sat in my usual spot on the floor between his legs and he stroked my hair and kept kissing me on the head, his hands on my shoulders. He loved having Gutsy9 on his lap.

It was indescribably hard to see him off when the taxi came to pick him up and take him back to the nursing lodge but, all in all, it was a brilliant day.

Later in the evening I rang Ants a few times because he was very low and I caught myself thinking about how heartbreaking Christmas Day is for so many and I got a big lump in my throat.

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“C’mon, Mum, have a laugh!”

by jmgoyder

One of things Ming says to me most often these days is “C’mon, Mum, have a laugh!” So today I will tell a funny story.

Gutsy9, the baby peacock, is now two weeks old and is quite happy to sleep in his box at night as long as he can spend the day on my shoulder. Well, when he was one day old, Ming and I had to go to town to do numerous things and I didn’t want to leave Gutsy9 alone for so long, so I took him tucked into my shirt. Ming had a gig to set up for, I had a lunch date with friends, then Ming had a counselling appointment and I was going to visit Ants (another reason I took Gutsy9 with me – I wanted to show him to Ants.)

Okay, so I dropped Ming off and went to the restaurant. Gutsy9 was asleep inside my shirt almost under my left arm so I kept my left hand on him through the shirt, sat down at the table with my friends and ordered. Gutsy9 was quiet to begin with but soon woke up and chirped, so I took him out and showed my friends who were rather aghast so I quickly chucked him back into my shirt and joined in the various conversations. A couple of hours later I picked Ming up to go to counselling and he’d forgotten I had Gutsy9 so said, “Oh that bloody bird – you’re the one who needs counselling.” He was quite nasty and I was hurt.

Anyway, the counsellor had asked me to come for the first bit of Ming’s session so I went in with him but said I couldn’t stay long because of the bird. I pulled Gutsy9 out of my shirt to show her and she looked, well, a bit surprised to say the least. Then we all sat down and she asked me how I was. It never ceases to amaze me how those three simple words ‘how are you?’ can reduce me to tears – which is what happened much to my horror. I said Ming and I had just had another altercation blah blah blah, and she suggested I stay for the whole session but I said no because I wanted to take Gutsy9 to show Anthony.

So I left and drove up the road to the nursing lodge and spent a very pleasant hour with Ants and Gutsy9 then went back to pick Ming up. By then, Ming was repentant but tentatively suggested that I should have some private counselling sessions of my own because he had been helped enormously. I told him I would think about it and we went home.

It was a few days later, when I was telling some other friends about the counselling experience, and they were laughing hysterically, that I realized how stark, raving mad I must have seemed to the counsellor and to my lunch companions!

Anthony, on the other hand, wasn’t the slightest bit nonplussed because he knows me, adores me and accepts me.

So, “C’mon, Ming, have a laugh!”

And guess what – we are both laughing today – yeeha!

Gutsy9 just hatched.

Gutsy9 – 2 weeks old today!

Animal Family Friendship LOVE STORY Wings

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“You have a pied peacock!”

by jmgoyder

Well guess what I found out yesterday? Gutsy9 is definitely a male and he is also pied which means he is half blue and half white. So I was probably right about King being the father and one of the white peahens being the mother. A friend who was doing some painting here took one look at him and said “You have a pied peacock!” He was so surprised. Apparently we may find a few more little Gutsys around in the next few weeks but, since I haven’t been able to find any nests, it seems unlikely.

Here is a link to a website that shows pictures of what a pied peacock looks like when it’s fully grown. I found this very interesting.

http://database.amyspeacockparadise.com/blue_pied.html

It’s possible, of course, that Prince might be the father.

But all of the peahens tend to avoid Prince because he is so immature.

So this must be Mum.

And this must be Dad!

None of Gutsy9’s possible parents, however, will take him under their wings!

Animal Family Friendship Wings

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There is nothing like having a peacock on your shoulder!

by jmgoyder

Over the last few days I have derived an enormous amount of joy and comfort from an unexpected gift – Gutsy9 – the little peachick who mostly lives on my shoulder.

Animal Wings

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Flying

by jmgoyder

Gutsy9 is now a week and a day old and he can already fly. He can fly from the floor up to my lap and from my lap up to my shoulder! And if he falls off my shoulder, while I am walking around, he simply uses his little wings for a soft landing.

Animal Family Friendship Wings

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Peachick ponderings

by jmgoyder

I take Gutsy9 outside as often as I can but I can’t leave him alone because he’s nervous of the bigger birds.

This is King and Princess 1 wondering if Gutsy9 is theirs, but not willing to get too close.

Gutsy9 scurries back to me all the time!

Animal Family Friendship Wings

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Heaven!

by jmgoyder

Gutsy9: I love it here!

Could I stay a bit longer? It’s only early.

Yay – this is heaven!

Animal Family Friendship LOVE STORY Wings

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Parkinson’s paradoxes

by jmgoyder

When most people hear the term ‘Parkinson’s Disease’, they tend to think of Michael J Fox and the Parkinson’s that make you shake, move haphazardly or suffer debilitating tremors. Anthony’s type of PD is not like that and is often termed ‘Parkinsonism’. His symptoms have included a dramatic loss of movement. In many ways this is a kinder PD because of the lack of tremors but on the other hand the crippling immobility of brain/body has been a long, slow series of gradual shocks. First his hands couldn’t do things like open a jar of vegemite, steer a car, operate a chainsaw; then his face stopped ‘working’ in the sense that he no longer smiled and he stopped blinking, so that his eyes took on a blank look. I have already written about some of these things in previous posts so I won’t repeat myself.

One of the most noticeable things about Anthony’s PD is his stillness. Before the nursing lodge he would sit for hours on the front verandah in complete stillness. Sometimes he would be so still that the blue wrens would alight on his lap not realizing he was a human. Sometimes he would be so still I would think he’d died. Sometimes he would be so still he would drop his cup of tea.

Well, today I took Gutsy9, the baby peacock, in again to see Ants at the nursing lodge and guess who loved Anthony’s stillness?