Peafowl with chickens and ducks?

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MinxFox said:
The reason why Garden Peas says no wing clipping is due to the fact that even with their wings clipped, peafowl are really good jumpers. They can jump over the fence then once out of the fenced in area they could get hurt. Flight is such a great way to escape predators that taking that away could be bad, but if you will only be letting them outside with supervision then it could be okay, but still not really needed. Most of us on here don't like the idea of wing clipping because peafowl love to roost up high, so no flight means low roosts, etc. The higher their roosts, the better. If you start with young peafowl you can easily work with them to be easily herded back into a pen. I have peafowl that I hand raised, that I bought as adults, etc and sometimes I let them out of their pen for a bit. It is very easy to herd them back into the pen. You just have to take it slow so as not to startle any of the birds or else they could take off and fly. It is very easy to get them back in the pen though and I have never wing clipped mine. With you watching them you shouldn't have issues. It is when you have them out and go to off to work, out to eat, etc that they can get into trouble when you aren't there to herd them back into the yard. In the case where one of my peafowl gets loose and flies off, the next day I will find them pacing the pen fence frantically to get back inside.

I noticed on the "Quiet Peafowl, Anybody Interested???" topic, you recently posted asking Dr. James for any news. The call of the peacock is so entwined with what makes a peacock a peacock as far as breeding, socializing, alarm calling, etc that I am hoping you are not considering voice removal. It is most of our personal opinion on here that if you have to remove a peacock's voice in order to be able to keep him or you don't like the noise they make, then you are better off getting some other kind of bird. There are many colorful pheasants that also have unique displays that you can raise. Here is more information on peacock noise: http://bamboopeacock.com/Noisy_Peacocks.html
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Okay I would see how I could keep them close I guess. I was not really interested in voice removal but I read somewhere he said there is an alternative and it's a breed called Java green peafowl and those are quieter. Not my intentions to pay $250+ to have some peacock's neck cut up and left voiceless. We like noise just not too much. Hoping to find some that are not too bad or if they are loud just not non-stop noise.
 
Garden Peas said:
If you don't want them to fly (trees or anywhere else) buy rabbits. Or more sheep. Don't mutilate the peafowl.
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Didn't know if they were like birds that would just fly away. Clipping wings would have been a last resort. Not my intention to clip wings I guess whenever we let them out of the netted run I will keep them busy with cracked corn. Hope I didn't offend any of y'all just trying to learn what the common practices are for peafowl they are like a whole new species compared to chickens in terms of care, just trying to learn.
 
It is good that you are asking questions, but it does sound as though peafowl may not be the best choice for you. I would strongly suggest that you go visit a reputable breeder in the spring/summer time frame and get a feel for the noise level, before you buy. As for free-ranging, there are a number of folks here who free-range their peas part time or full time. Your pen plan sounds large enough in the barn.

There are a number of pea breeders on the East coast... not sure how far you are from @DylansMom or @Bluecreekfarms , or even @snowshoe , but you could check with them and get a lot of your questions answered in person. Sometimes seeing and hearing is better than trying to figure it out online.

Two acres is great, but calls will carry, depending on how loud the male happens to be, and it varies somewhat. If you have fussy neighbors, you may get complaints. Devoicing a pea, as MinxFox and Trefoil explained, is not something that seems to be in a pea's best interest. One of mine got frightened and lost, and his voice saved him, as he was able to call and get the other birds to call back, and that was how he found his way home. It was terrifying for all of us. And I agree, it is likely to be essential for breeding. I cannot think of any reason to ever de-voice a pea. Better to not own them.

Perhaps once you have spent time at a breeder's place, you will decide the noise is not a problem. But it would be worth a trip just to explore and see what life with peas is like, before you commit to ownership. And MinxFox is right -- keeping greens is not something that novice pea owners should generally consider, as the temperament is quite different. Good luck with whatever you decide.
 
MinxFox said:
The Javanese greens are one subspecies of green peafowl. People say the green peafowl are quieter. They make a similar call to a regular India Blue peacock or India Blue peacock variety, but it is said their voice just doesn't travel as far. Destinduck started off with green peafowl, but generally I would say that for your first peafowl you should go with an India Blue variety. Green peafowl are endangered in the wild, and if you want pure green peafowl you have to be careful because you can easily buy impure ones. The blue and green peafowl can be bred to create a hybrid called a Spalding, and Spaldings can reproduce and so sometimes people buy a "green peafowl" when it is really just a spalding bird. It can be hard to tell the difference sometimes. So green peafowl aren't the best starter peafowl since they can be more expensive, flightier, they can't be let out of the pen, etc. Usually the cheapest peafowl variety is the India Blue.

The more peacocks you have, the more noise. If you are just going to be keeping one male or just a few males, I don't think it will get too noisy. When you visit a peafowl breeder during the breeding season, the only time the peacocks get loud is when one peacock calls and the other peacocks decide to start calling with him. That is when it can get noisy.

I hope you don't think we are trying to pick on you. Sometimes people show up in the peafowl section explaining how they have a peacock but they don't think the neighbors will like the noise so they are seriously considering getting the bird's voice removed. Other times people show up having just bought some peafowl and they have no clue how to care for them and for some reason they didn't research their basic requirements before buying them?! So sometimes we can be defensive, or I can be at least, because sometimes we get too used to dealing with people like that.
hmm.png
Anyways, we have seen some crazy things so we are quick to say "Ahhh don't do that!" haha.
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Thanks for all the info that helps a lot. You're right there are a lot of people who get them spur of the moment but that is not us. I have seen peafowl before locally and the noise from to or three is not bad at all. Our ducks are easily much worse. I will continue researching and trying to find people local who can help out. Thank you for being appropriately cautious, I understand completely and often do the same with our various animals. We are very capable pet owners; owners of sheep, chickens, ducks, and many many other animals in the past and we are confident we can be great peafowl owners given enough research prior to getting them, as we have done very thoroughly for all of our animals.
 
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