AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

EJ
I have never heard of anyone paying that much for a hen and I have been raising pure java for years.

Pam

I would buy those reverse java pieds in a heart beat and I would probebly pay $9.000 for a pair. I would pay up to $2.000 per normal java because they are hard to buy but certainly not $9.500 but to each his own I guess, I hope she lays sof eggs for the buyer.


Oto

Well said Oto! The thing is if it were someone really rich then $9000 is really nothing to them. People pay $100000 for a Beatles autograph or something like that and you can't breed with that!!!. I know it puts the rest of us out of the market but that has always been the case with rare things. I have friends who are quite poor farmers, but between them they managed to scrape and save up enough money to buy a young stallion for $40000. This would have been a fortune for them, believe me. They are on the campdrafting circuit and do well so their stallion has paid for himself in 2 years with service fees. In another year or two he will have youngstock on the ground in the public eye so if the stock do well they will probably do even better. Even if they don't they have had the fun of owning a lovely animal. It is all relative isn't it?

For Drew and EJ specifically, "erstwhile" means "used to be" or "once was" and refers to a person who used to have the purest JG line in Australia and sell to private collectors, zoos, etc. Because of a change in circumstances this person farmed out all the pure JG stock to two lots of people. With all due care and help they still only managed to produce two chicks last year. And before you ask, that is all the info I can give you about the person as there is a privacy issue, but I think nearly 40 years of breeding counts for something, don't you?

Thanks too to DMFarms for your explanation but I did think PA said they didn't do crosses, that it wasn't a good idea?

Cheers, Pam

Ej, I sent you a pm so we don't go off topic too much
Cheers Drew Smith

If your serious about breeding to premote the breed or to improve it then your not in it for the money, and a birds worth what ever someone pays for it just my 2 cents

DMFARMS I would imagine that all our prices are elevated compared to your prices over there. I would have said $9500 was a bit over the top as well but... stranger things happen, it may be an exceptionally good looking bird as we have very few pure Javans here in OZ. I would have agreed with Oto, my projected price due to the greater demand and fewer birds being available that the price for good quality birds would be around $1500 - $2000 a bird with the age this bird had, maybe as much as $5000- for a mature good quality pair.
Oto said he would be comfortable paying big dollars for the Javan Pieds and that was my point before. Any mutation that takes time, work and effort deserves to be acknowledged and whether it is establishing or just breeding something that is in fewer numbers in the country, price is dictated by establishment, availability and not greed. Should the Javan hen breed and rear
2 nests of four babies at $1000- dollars each the person already is near there investment price in the bird and everything produced after that is profit. I don't know how many people can invest in shares and get 100% return in the first year.
Not to mention that the people have a very nice hen at the end of the day to enjoy the beauty of. It is fine to say we do it for the love of it, or the breed, and the money is irrelevant but unless you are a Barrister or Doctor how can you afford to have a large collection of things you like when it cost you thousands of dollars a year in feeding and husbandry. If your working all the time you no longer have time to enjoy your birds as you have no time. If you break even or turn a small profit from doing something you enjoy you can spend more time on them and you are also preserving some things that may be scarcer not to mention you can afford to buy more to add to your collection.
It is good that two people have the Javan collection as it ensures that there is a back up if something goes wrong such as disease or foxes etc... Hopefully they will both have a good year this year as the birds are some of the best I have seen around.

If anything this thread has generated more members. Good on the seller for giving APF a boost through discussion.

Opinions are opinions.....personally I'd pay what I had to for the bird/birds that I wanted....simple really and I think WE all would do the same.

Sorry I went a little OT.

I sent Peacocks Australia {PA} a message asking him to check out this topic again as I think we need to hear from the biggest & best java breeder in Australia actually the biggest & best peacock breeder in oz to be precise. Sorry PA
Cheers Drew Smith

Update.
I've now sent PA an email on the shock price of hen & more I hope we hear from him soon, I'm suspect like me Fluffy and Hutchy are hanging out to hearing from the biggest
Cheers Drew Smith