Moving a Broody Peahen?

Okay so the house we recently purchased came with chickens and a peafowl pair. (I tell you this so you know that other than reading a book about peafowl and the limited info I got from the former sellers, I really don't know that much.) The peafowl are free range, they do their own thing, hang out with the chickens especially during feed time and treat time, but roost themselves in a tree at night and are pretty much zero maintenance for us. I didn't realize how attached I'd become to my royal couple (as I call them) until my peahen went missing a couple days ago. Well we found her and she's sitting on a nest! YAY!

Here's the thing, I don't think she's very safe where she's at (we have foxes, bobcats, snakes, the occasional black bear, etc.). And she's on the edge of a field that isn't my property and I'm worried the farmer will come through with his tractor again before she's done incubating them (she's not far enough out to get run over, but I'm sure it'd make her flip out). The former owners of our house told us this will be her first year of sexual maturity and that in their experience peahens aren't the best at choosing safe locations for their nests. They used to have a second peafowl pair and in the past they've always moved the hen and her eggs into a spare enclosure to keep her safe during the incubation period. I'm afraid of stressing her out by doing this, and don't want her to abandon her eggs or anything as we don't have an incubator for peafowl eggs.

- Does anyone have any advice on this?
- Should we just leave her be and hope for the best?
- Should we move her into a spare enclosure (we have one enclosure that has an outdoor area that is 8x8x8 and an indoor area I'm not sure of the size)?
- Or my husband also contemplated building some sort of enclosure around her (she's against a fence though so it would only have 3 sides and the top and so snakes and such could still reach through to her and her eggs from that fourth side)? But that last option seems really complicated and difficult plus I'd think she'd need to get up at some point for water right?
- And if we do move her to the enclosure, should I provide her with some feed and water, will she get up to get these things? And when/how should I move her to keep it as stress free as possible? I'm so lost...

Thank you in advance for any and all help. I just don't want to lose Henry's mate (I wouldn't mind getting some healthy little heirs out of it, either)!

I would move her. That is how I have lost almost every bird to predators. You should be able to walk up and grab her. Get the eggs and put them and her in your coom. Make a nest for her ahead of time. Yes, she will get up to eat and drink.

Okay so we moved her. We waited until nightfall, hoping things would be less stressful then. We put a sheet over her and my husband picked her up and she did pretty well on the walk to the enclosure. I followed behind with the eggs (which I picked up with a sterile glove, because I read that using bare hands might introduce oils and bacteria) and we made a really cozy nest for her. I used the same materials she had been nesting with on the ground (leaves and pine needles and stuff) and put them in a open topped box with high sides (except on one side it was a little lower for easy entry/exit. I put water and feed nearby so she wouldn't have to go far. We put the nest box inside the room, but not too far from the door so she could see out and see that she still has grass and stuff. I honestly don't know if any of this was the right thing to do, we just tried our best. My husband released her directly in front of her nest box with the eggs in it, and then we quickly and quietly backed out of the enclosure. We stood in the dark watching her and she stepped onto the edge of the nest box and investigated the eggs, then she stepped into the nest and just stood there for a while. So we quietly made a complete exit and hoped for the best. This morning when I went out there she was just wandering around the outdoor area of the enclosure, and it was pretty cool this morning so I know those eggs were cooling down fast, especially if she hadn't been on them all night. My husband and I just went out again an hour or so ago and still she's not sitting on the eggs.

Nothing I can do at this point? We haven't moved her from the enclosure, yet, hoping she might yet still decide to sit on them, or possibly even lay again? But, I don't know if this is just wishful thinking, and it's probably a lost cause this year...

I read in some previous threads that the first year of mating sometimes produces infertile eggs. So is it possible for me to convince myself that she was just practicing this year? I have no idea how old my peacock is, and all I know about her is that last year she was too young to mate (according to the former owners). Is there any hope for next year of moving her and she staying on the nest?

Sorry read a little to late....moving setting peahen , most will not accept the new nest,...not like chicken hens.


she may still lay another clutch, so keep her penned up in a safe place, also with the male.

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Okay!! I'll get him in there ASAP! Thanks for the advice.

I'm sorry I'm so retarded about all this. Thank you so much for the help so far. Another (probably dumb) question ...

What do I do with the eggs she abandoned?

My husband says eat them and I went ! But throwing them away isn't much better so I just don't know. There's not really a market here to sell them and being 39 weeks pregnant I just don't have the energy to try, plus I don't even know if they'd be viable at all at this point. I did accidentally drop one today (they're cold to the touch) and I don't know if they'd have a bullseye like chicken eggs get, but it totally broke apart so I couldn't tell anyway. My husband picked up the cracked shell and said there was a tiny streak of blood. She was sitting on them for 3 days before we moved her, so they haven't incubated that long, but still. And it's been about 14 hours of her not being on them.

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Since she has been sitting a while there is a chance there will be visible development so you don not really want to eat them. Also your peahen may have had bacteria or pathogens on her so they might be infected. If you have a broody hen or incubator put them in/under they might till be good.