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lose their dignity. Last week, a Norwegian Elk hound mother who shares a shed with Hitt’s peacocks dashed out growling and snapping when a big cock strayed too close to her puppies. There was no scramble, no startled squawk. The bird just sailed gracefully and effortlessly up to the barn roof right from under the dog’s nose. The self-possessed creature made it look like that was what he intended to do all along; that it was only coincidence his flight and the dog’s charge Happened at the same time. Although Hitt doesn't have the kind of relationship with his birds that lets him scratch them behind a wing or tussle their feathers, he still considers his peacocks as pets. "They come right up to the house, look in the door at me and come on the porch. They’ve got a lot of curiosity. I can be working on the front of the tractor in the morning and they climb all over the back, trying to see just what I’m doing.”
If the birds hear voices at the beauty shop nearby, Betty Hitt added, “they act like we're talking to them. They’ll stick their heads right in!”
Besides being pretty to look at, the birds serve a purpose at Hitt's farms. "They walk the garden all the time, looking for insects. They’ve never touched the vegetables, not even a tomato, but they sure love them beetles!” he noted.
They also provide the best alarm system on the market. Neither man nor beast can approach the Hitt’s house after dark without setting the cocks to hollering. It’s a hunting cry. "It's between a...I don’t know. I can’t describe it,” said Hitt, schrugging his shoulders.
“Their call sounds something like a cat or like a baby,” Betty added. “They holler * hel 111' — that's what it sounds like to me,” chuckled Hitt.
Whatever the noise, it’s loud and it's bloodcurdling, a call that frightens away would-be-robbers as well as foxes intent on raiding the hen house and at the same time, alerts the Hitts that something or someone strange is prowling around.
Birds of different feathers all flock together in the Amissville barnyard. Turkey gobblers, chickens, roosters, geese and pigeons share the yard and shed with the pea fowl. But the brilliant cocks are boss. “They’re mean with the other fowls. When the peacocks come up to the feed, the rest of them take off,” Hitt reported.
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