Greenbriar Aviaries and Avian Conservancy

13/05/2024

A big part of hatching success is knowing where a good place to put your bator is. I have my bators in my office so I can keep an eye on them throughout the day. I also use hygrometers and thermometers to confirm the bators' own readings. I also run an air purifier/filter to keep down dust and any "birdy" odors from hatching. What's most important is that the room has stable temps that are neither to hot nor to cold (65-75ish seems to be great h
For our humidity in the bators we keep it at 60% so 50% ambient humidity is just fine.

I do not recommend putting bators where it is very cool or worse very damp. Stability and a relatively friendly "baseline" in your bator room makes a huge difference.

11/05/2024

And the young uns are hatching!

05/05/2024

We love nature as much as birds. This well for irrigation had to be put in where a pen was but rather than just let it turn into a patch of weeds we decided to turn it into a prairie garden for pollinators and hummingbirds!

Larkspur, purple lobelia, blanketflower, cup flower, columbine, gayfeather, yellow cones, eastern prickly pear, blue lupine, bee balm, cardinalflower, and a number of other perennials are planted up for the spring!

A layered sand and composted manure cake is what the plants crave!

02/05/2024

Butt pearls are flying! When collecting eggs we immediately mark the pen it came out of. Before putting in the bator we wipe down each egg with a wet paper towel to remove any residual grime.

It is a myth that washing will destroy the eggs' fertility. You have to scrub them to do that and you're more likely to break eggs than clean them.

We hope this helps.

14/04/2024

(Sings) sand sand here, sand sand there, and a couple of brand new logs! That's how we keep birds in good care in the merry old land of Oz!

Sand is a great substrate to use for ground birds as it is poor in organics which draw worms, and easy draining which keeps disease down.

We use natural logs whenever possible of various woods. We don't have a preference just whatever has been cut or pruned. The birds love them and it is very healthy for their feet. Sort of like a foot scrub to remove dead skin.

04/04/2024

With so many spring swaps and auctions going on it can be confusing seeing all the colors and patterns of peafowl in all their glory, never mind how they look in combination with each other. This book covers many varieties currently recognized as well as varieties that have never been shown to the wider world until this publication. Chicks, train feather comparisons, side by sides of adults, pictures of colors and patterns from the world over, and commentary on identifying marks of each. Get yours today!

A photographic guide to peafowl including colors, species, side by side comparisons of different varieties and so much more.

31/03/2024

Trying to figure out the best ways to pair your birds to get even better birds? This book offers advice on how to get the best possible results as well as tables showing how the various color types express themselves and are carried.

A complete guide on peafowl genetics and breeding.

12/03/2024

Pairing up birds for spring!

We are in a bit of a rush to get everyone penned up and comfortable for breeding season. Our weather has a bad habit of arbitrarily deciding when winter is over which means it could be done in feb. or we could still get snow in April, who knows?

Here are some tips with pairing.

- Put both birds in the same pen at the same time OR put the hen in first. NEVER take a hen to a male who has been alone in a pen for some time if it is avoidable.
- IF aforementioned cannot be avoided, adding new perches and other diversions/distractions can help side step the worst of the aggression. A distracted/entertained bird is not a fighting bird.
- Have a plan with what you want to produce with all of your pairings. Haphazard breeding is not conducive to anything.
- KEEP RECORDS OF PARENTS AND CHICKS. You won't sell many birds if you cannot say with confidence what they are. With all my young birds I can check the band and point to what pen his mom and dad are in and even where grandma and grandpa are hanging out if I have had the mutation long enough. It just keeps things organized.
- Watch out for c**k on hen aggression and even hen on hen aggression. Both can happen which is why retreats and hiding places in breeding pens are important.
- Have multiple food and water sources to prevent resource guarding by the c**k bird. Put them on opposite ends of the pen from each other if you can.
-Give browse and green food for enrichment as the trees leaf out as enrichment.
- Pair the best birds with the best birds. Genetically and physically healthy birds are the head turners without fail! :)

We hope this helps. Photo of another star of our book Peafowl; The Complete Visual Dictionary, a steel c**k bird chick!

25/02/2024

We would LOVE to hear feedback on our visual dictionary of peafowl (now available on amazon and kindle). What did you like? What was addressed that you found most helpful? What do you feel could be improved upon?

These books are living documents and further editions of all of them will be released in the coming years as changes dictate. We are learning just as you are learning and are writing and editing as new knowledge comes to light. We are not experts just scribes.

Photo of the snow moon for tax.

PS in early paper back copies there may have been some layout errors with text ans photos not matching neatly on certain pages. We have contacted amazon and found out it can take some tweaking for their printer to "get the hang" of a book. They invite any misprints to be returned for replacement or refund as amazon's policy allows. We take no part in distribution or printing.

22/02/2024

If you haven't checked out our visual dictionary yet here is one of it's stars! Steel BS yearling.

17/02/2024

For those of you who are Kindle readers our latest book Peafowl; The Complete Visual Dictionary, is now available on Amazon Kindle!

A complete visual guide to the various colors, patterns, and species of peafowl both in captivity in the US and abroad. Each picture has the important marks to note when telling varieties apart as well as side by side comparisons of both male and female birds of various colors. A section is also ...

11/02/2024

(In best Sir David Attenborough voice). "The pancake has been separated from the herd it now stands NO chance of escape". (Dramatic music).

10/02/2024

Birds and bird varieties raised here going into 2024. Can't wait for the butt pearls to start being laid!

Impeyan pheasants
Muticus muticus peafowl
Imperator peafowl
Golden pheasants
India blue peafowl
Homing pigeons

Color mutations in peafowl currently raised
Midnight blackshoulder
Midnight barred wing
Violeta barred wing
Violeta blackshoulder
Steel
Steel blackshoulder
Indigo
Indigo pied
Indigo blackshoulder
Hazel
Hazel blackshoulder
Montana
India blue blackshoulder
Purple
Bronze
Bronze blackshoulder
Bronze pied.

Let the fun begin!

07/02/2024

Sometimes adopted dads are the best dads even if you're almost as big as he is and he can't count so he's trying to spread himself over a dozen chicks.

Hats off to single silver dads. ;)

16/01/2024

COLD here are some tips to keep your birds alive during awful weather.

-if they are shivering they are to cold and need to be warmed up.

- if you are getting below 0 temps with or without windchill try and get them sheltered. Just because they will try to roost in the open doesn't mean it's ok. Many times they will roost earlier in the evening before the weather gets bad and then won't shelter elsewhere when it gets worse because they don't move at night.

- feed high nutrient and high calorie foods to help keep body temps up. Ours like suet cakes.

12/01/2024

We don't just love peafowl and pheasants we love their art too! This is a depiction of the phoenix (muticus imperator) on a decorative japanese sword brought back to the states by my grandfather who was stationed in okinawa during the US occupation of invaded japan near the end of the war. .

10/01/2024

"When I dance, they call me Macareno
And the girls, they say que soy bueno"!

HEEYYYYY MACARENA! Someone decided to start dancing two and a half months early.

04/01/2024

As breeding season nears we start to feed more treats as well as nutrient heavy foods. Our birds are busily growing out their tails and putting on weight for spring. These are some of the foods we give them!

31/12/2023

Many people use livestock guardian dogs to protect their birds and typically use anatolians or pyrenees. This guy has been an ongoing training project that has yielded positive results.

This guy is a pure bred german shepherd and while they are not known for being lgds this guy was special. He was born outdoors on a peafowl farm so some of the first sounds and scents to enter his nose were of pheasants and peafowl.

This has given him a important base to build on training him to leave the birds alone. He has never had a problem with attacking them as they seem to be viewed as "fixtures" rather than prey.

Being that all our birds are penned anyway we can take his shepherd instinct to protect structures and perimeters and use it to protect our pens from vermin and intrusian. He is trustworthy in the pens but the birds' instinctive fear of canines means they get nervous and we don't want to risk any panicking birds.

30/12/2023

A close up of some shed neck feathers from our malaysian greens.

26/12/2023

Check out this violeta juvenile hen, you can see the dark violet coloration beginning to show in her neck.

26/12/2023

A midnight blackshoulder c**k bird from 2023. You can see the dark charcoal black coming in along with green and blue.

On hens there would not be nearly this much black. For more pointers and side by side comparisons of different colors see our latest book Peafowl the Complete Visual Dictionary!

Merry Christmas!

18/12/2023

IT'S HERE!! After a few extra days of waiting for it to be processed (220+ pages!) Peafowl The Complete Visual Dictionary is now available in paperback! Get your copy today!

A photographic guide to peafowl including colors, species, side by side comparisons of different varieties and so much more.

08/12/2023

Not much green food to be had in winter but sales on melon and cabbages make for entertained birds. When birds are entertained they spend less time fighting.

30/11/2023

After many long hours of editing and endlessly cropping photos this whale of a book is finally ready to go for release on 12/15!!! This book is more than just pretty pictures of individual varieties! It includes,

- watch me grow (pictures of birds from chick through adult)
- Side by side comparisons of males, females, and different species
- Chick pictures. let's see what many of these varieties look like out of the wrapper.
- each picture is captioned with identification points, markers of the color/variety, and feather structures.
- Genetic disorders and signs of poor breeding are pictured as well with the kind consent of those who were unfortunately sold said birds.
- Commentaries on behavioral and physical development as well as nutrition's effects on development.

12/15 is when it drops! In the mean time here are some of our other works.

https://www.amazon.com/Birds-Paradise-Peafowl-Breeding-Managment/dp/B0BVCWTFMY/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2B8XMDWJB1RWO&keywords=josh+schreiber&qid=1701361202&s=books&sprefix=josh+schreiber%2Cstripbooks%2C103&sr=1-2

https://www.amazon.com/Peafowl-Genetics-Breeding-Josh-Schreiber/dp/B09F1FL9QY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2B8XMDWJB1RWO&keywords=josh+schreiber&qid=1701361202&s=books&sprefix=josh+schreiber%2Cstripbooks%2C103&sr=1-1

02/11/2023

ugh snow! unless you're an impeyan pheasant cold does not mean you are a happy bird! here are some tips to avoid hypothermia and frostbite.

- Keep all quarters dry especially when temperatures start to drop. We throw down fresh sand to help keep mud and droppings from becoming a very smelly pig wallow.

- make sure all birds can either sleep up on perches or at least settle into a bedding that retains heat well. We use horse bedding for our young bird shelters as it is low dust and comfortable for them.

- if any birds are wet from rain or melting snow and the temp drops below freezing it can be lethal, even just getting a bird a dry crate in a warm area for an hour or two to dry itself without the cold helps. If you come to get them and they are sleeping standing up with their head under their wing you may want to keep them in a day or two longer and make sure they've got their weight and vigor back.

- If a bird keeps picking up its feet as if they're wearing uncomfortable shoes check for frostbite immediately. If the toes are still like twigs get the bird indoors and warm its feet VERY SLOWLY. We have found wrapping the bird in a warm towel and running room temperature water over them while gentle rubbing the feet works well for restoring circulation. NEVER use hot or even very warm water. Keep the bird out of the cold as it heals.

- birds huddled in a corner looking miserable is not good if you see this intervene immediately.

- Make sure everyone has a comfortable amount of perch space. Also make sure the perches for larger birds such as peas are strong because a bunch of fat birds sitting on a perch adds up to alot of weight. Have had a few perches snap that way thankfully it's a simple matter to replace them.

- feed higher calorie foods. Black oil sunflower seeds, peanuts, insect larva, pinky mice, fruits, and fatty greens all give good nutrition without causing digestive issues or excessive fat.

- With our young of the year birds we use a special bucket that we fill with water and keep in our 50 degree shop for their water bowls only. Warm or hot water loses its temperature fast in cold weather which can leave them feeling colder. With our own birds we use a special bucket that we fill with water and keep in our 50 degree shop for their water bowls only. Warm or hot water loses its temperature fast in cold weather which can leave them feeling colder. the roughly room temp water does give them a boost but not so much there's a "crash" since unlike when we have a hot drink they don't get to come inside.

-shelter both the run and any buildings from direct wind as able. Planting trees as windbreaks can really make a difference. Red pine, white pine, spruce, poplar, and sumac can be good options depending on where you are. We have found spruce to work will even if it grows rather slowly. Their shape means they are less likely to snap off branches or break in higher wind.

This is only a small bit of what can be done but these are the big ones we have found work well to knock hypothermia and frostbite out of the ring.

27/10/2023

Always nice to see the work uou did putting in new perches is appreciated! Both our peas and our pheasants appreciate the jungle gyms we make!

We try to use branches and logs for our perches as they promote good foot health and imitate the birds' natural habitat. 2x4s are used as well to help stabilize the perches where needed.

We try to use branches that are sturdy with gentle curves. Branches that have strong forks in them make great perches!

To secure our branches we use screws and occasionally zip ties. We take great precautions to make sure sharp ends/edges and loops are safely covered or closed.

We hope this helps.

18/10/2023

FREEZING FIRST AID! With very low temperatures hitting some of us hard on top of rain and wetness it's a rough time for birds, especially young of the year just finding their feet. Here are some things you can do to keep from losing birds in the transitional weather.

- keep everyone dry, they can handle cold reasonably well but cold and wet are partnered killers of birds.

- Make sure everyone can get off the ground. Sleeping on the ground especially outside is not good. Perches large enough or wide enough for the birds to settle down in are important. Ours seem to be fond of natural branches for perches and they definitely help with foot health.

- Make sure everyone has shelter from wind or blowing rain.

- keep an eye out for pecking issues and respiratory issues. Birds being in closer quarters and sometimes kicking up dust can mean infections in the nose and eyes.

- Isolate birds that are shivering, gasping, or seem in distress. a dog crate with a hot water bottle and warm towel in a laundry room will help. Sometimes when things such as worms and bad weather both hit at the same time it can overwhelm otherwise healthy birds.

- diced fruit mixed with sugar water and their usual food can be a good sick food that will help them get back on their feet.

- Give your birds weight checks every now and then. If the keel bone is sharp in your hand with little muscle or fat to blunt it your bird might need help.

We hope this helps, this guy went for an adventure today that did not last very long due to the poor weather.

12/10/2023

A young midnight blackshoulder male. Besides the dark saddle coloration the dark feathering on this bird's neck show it is both male and midnight. In india blue blackshoulder males these black feathers would be blue.