Expert: Julia Booth - 7/5/2008

Question
Dear Julia:  I have owned my peacocks for about 4 months. They are in a big enclosure and they did mate. She started nesting in a box I put in there, and I started calculating after her fourth egg was laid. If it is 28 days, they were due to hatch on June 24/08. She has 5 eggs, she got off maybe twice. I'm afraid for her health because she is still sitting on them. What do I do? I sure hope you can help me or direct me to someone who can. Happy 4th of July by the way.  Sincerely, Marilyn

Answer
They should have hatched by now. Since the mom won't eat while she's incubating -I usually wouldn't recommend this, but you've obviously kept track of when the eggs were layed and this is a game bird and not a wild one- consider removing the eggs and candling them for viability.

http://shilala.homestead.com/candling.html

Hope that helps.