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I think that's cruel to take their eggs away from them ;(;(
Well I have done both methods (taking eggs and not taking them) and I don't really see taking the eggs away as cruel especially because I do it to save lives! The last peahen I let sit on her own eggs she was in the aviary and in a nest box and a raccoon came in and killed her. Penned or free-ranged it is dangerous for peahens to nest. Yes it is cute seeing peahens raise peachicks and they do learn good things from their mom, but in a year or less the real cruelty is when one day the yearling comes up to its mom and instead of being kind to her baby she chases it off, pulls at its feathers, etc. Once the chicks are becoming adults the mother peahen moves on and could care less. Having peachicks in with other peafowl can make it hard for the peachicks to get enough to eat. If you don't have small enough fencing they can and will wander outside of the pen an get eaten. You have to have shallow water or else they can fall in and drown, rats can kill peachicks and rats will definitely eat the eggs if you don't collect them. At first I only wanted my peahens to hatch their eggs and then I learned how dangerous it can be and how much harder it is for the peachicks to get enough food. One year Ice and Damsel had at lest 9 peachicks between the both of them. Somehow chicks would go missing or I would find one dead and only 1 peachick from each peahen (2 chicks total) survived but they had stunted growth because they could not get enough food. I found it much easier to hand raise peachicks because it makes them tamer and you can monitor them a lot closer and they don't have to worry about fighting adult peafowl for food. There is a much lower chance of the hand raised ones dying from one of the many things I listed.
