Another New Guy Looking for Advice

[MontanaChet]

Hey Guys and Gals,

So I am looking into taking the plunge and getting into peafowl. I am probably going to ask the typical new guy questions but I have done some research over the weekend and have a few questions to run past you and any extra advice is greatly appreciated! So a bit about myself and my situation first so you have a bit of information going into this. I am a 24 year old married to a beautiful girl (yeah, I'm kinda bragging lol) with a super active 1 year old boy and we just built a new house on 20 Acres of land in Northern Montana. I have zero experience with peafowl or any birds for that matter.

How this all came about was we were talking about my wife's grandfather(who passed away before we were married) and he raised peafowl and other types of birds like pheasants and ducks. He did it as more of a hobby and he gave everything away years ago. So I have almost zero resources here as well. My wife loved the peacocks and has bouquets of peacock feathers still displayed throughout our house. When the subject came up, I began to wonder if it would be something worth getting into. The more research I did, the more I liked the sounds of it. I do have a full time job, so I liked that they can be done "part-time" and that they are hardy birds who can handle cold weather with the proper preparations. So here is what I am "planning" so far.

They will not be free range birds. I know that some people do that but I have heard they can damage cars and equipment and also, with the cold, I want them to be easy to put inside during the winter time. And just for reference of cold, this winter we had weeks of -30 F or colder and that is no wind chill figured in(and we get crazy winds, like +100 mph). The other issue is coyotes, foxes, mountain lions, and bears. I want to set it up so they are contained and protected. We also have a dog to help keep the other predators away. We haven't had issues with bears or mountain lions yet but they are sighted around our house fairly often. Also, we have very few trees right near our house for them to roost at this point so that is another reason to keep them contained. So I am going to build an enclosure with a top and also an enclosed barn/shed that will be insulated and heated. I am currently thinking along the lines of 4 birds but am not sure yet on starting numbers. I want to start out, see how many I feel like I can handle and grow from there. At some point I think it would be great to have around 25 or 30 birds or maybe even more depending on how things go. I personally want them to be a source of income. I also want them as a hobby, not just as income, but I do want to make money with them and not have them be an expense or break even proposition.

Now onto my questions:
1. How do you make a profit on peafowl and realistically, how profitable are they? Is most of the money made through the internet nowadays or is it still a fairly local minded business? Is there a demand for unhatched chicks, hatched chicks or adults? How about the feathers, are they profitable? I know you can sell all of that but is it profitable.

2. Do you have to keep peacocks and peahens separated until breeding and then separate them again? How about chicks, do you have to keep them separated from the peacocks? When the chicks are old enough to be out of the brooder, do they go in with the peahens or are the separated too?

3. Do you suggest getting hatched chicks or unhatched chicks to start my peafowl? What are the pros and cons of each?

4. If a peahen isn't bread until she is 3, is that a problem? I assume if I get 4 chicks I hope I get at least on peahen or one peacock so I can breed them but I hear peahens are ready to breed at 1 or 2 and peacocks at 3 and I wonder if that would become a problem for some reason.

5. If you have multiple peacocks, do you have to keep them separated from each other? How many peafowl would you advise per pen (pens being as large as needed, not cramped)?

6. What all do I need to start? I know I will need a brooder box regardless and an incubator if I get them unhatched but what else is needed? Is there any "tools of the trade"?

7. What do you suggest for a brooder box and incubator? What are things to look for in them and/or what one do you suggest specifically?

8. Should my pens have water plumbed in so I can wash the inside of the shed or does that cause problems (ex: mold, disease, etc.)? I will probably plumb it in for filling water dishes too but wondering on how to best clean the shed and pens.

9. Do you suggest grass in the pens or dirt? How about straw? Are small trees or shrubs a good addition to the pens?

So that's all I can think of right now! I'm sure I'll have more questions later. Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[zazouse]

I am tired and am about brain dead at this point but there will be some folks here to help you out with your new venture,
just wanted to say...

I'll be back aftet i have a nap

 

[MontanaChet]

I am tired and am about brain dead at this point but there will be some folks here to help you out with your new venture,
just wanted to say...

I'll be back aftet i have a nap

I apologize if my crazy long post wiped you out! Thanks for the welcome though for sure! By the way, that is a beautiful picture! Definitely caught the colors very well!

 

[zazouse]

It was not your post it was a long day at Jury selection, i don't do well in town.

If you click on my little show off your peas icon there are 100's of pea photos from my place and if you go to the thread (show off your peas there are many many many more from our group, eye candy at it's finest

 

[MontanaChet]

It was not your post it was a long day at Jury selection, i don't do well in town.

O fun. I know the feeling. There is a reason that I live in the country.....................people who live in the country know what I mean.

 

[Arbor]

Hey Guys and Gals,

Now onto my questions:
1. How do you make a profit on peafowl and realistically, how profitable are they? Is most of the money made through the internet nowadays or is it still a fairly local minded business? Is there a demand for unhatched chicks, hatched chicks or adults? How about the feathers, are they profitable? I know you can sell all of that but is it profitable.

Realistically, most of us are lucky to break even, but if you are a hell of a salesman, you should be able to sell feathers, eggs, chicks and adults to recover your loss. I figure that it costs me about $50/bird/year to maintain an adult bird. This however does not take into account the penning or housing. Feathers usually go for $0.50-$2 each, so with an adult male producing 125-200 feathers annually, that should cover your costs for at least an adult pair minus housing.

2. Do you have to keep peacocks and peahens separated until breeding and then separate them again? How about chicks, do you have to keep them separated from the peacocks? When the chicks are old enough to be out of the brooder, do they go in with the peahens or are the separated too?

I'm not sure about the 'have to's', but I don't separate the sexes unless I'm running short of space. Chicks I raise separate from adults till winter, unless they are late hatch, hen not till spring.

3. Do you suggest getting hatched chicks or unhatched chicks to start my peafowl? What are the pros and cons of each?

All depends on your budget. Eggs are a good way to start, but as a beginner, your not likely going to benefit from buying eggs online that will be shipped. The other downfall is you don't know what your going to end up with, they could all be female, not beneficial if your hoping to raise more, or sell feathers.

4. If a peahen isn't bread until she is 3, is that a problem? I assume if I get 4 chicks I hope I get at least on peahen or one peacock so I can breed them but I hear peahens are ready to breed at 1 or 2 and peacocks at 3 and I wonder if that would become a problem for some reason.

Most hens are fertile at 2, while many males can be, I haven't had much luck with young males. Otherwise, no problems if she's older before she is bred.

5. If you have multiple peacocks, do you have to keep them separated from each other? How many peafowl would you advise per pen (pens being as large as needed, not cramped)? 

You don't have to keep males separate from each other. The key is to keep them together long before breeding season starts, this way the pecking order is established. My pens have 16x20 inside pens with 16x16 outside pens. I keep anywhere from 2 to 6 peafowl in each, with up to two males if need be.

6. What all do I need to start? I know I will need a brooder box regardless and an incubator if I get them unhatched but what else is needed? Is there any "tools of the trade"?

Nothing different than chickens

7. What do you suggest for a brooder box and incubator? What are things to look for in them and/or what one do you suggest specifically?

Unless you plan on becoming a larger breeder, stick with a small incubator. You can use a simple large cardboard box with a mesh top and heat lamp for a brooder, moving them into a larger space with lamp as they get to big for the box.

8. Should my pens have water plumbed in so I can wash the inside of the shed or does that cause problems (ex: mold, disease, etc.)? I will probably plumb it in for filling water dishes too but wondering on how to best clean the shed and pens.

I have water plumbed, but that is only because it is there. I do wash the pens down once a year, but again, my floors are slatted. I've also got automatic watering system so I don't have to fill dishes every day (I use bell style chicken drinkers operated on a low pressure system.

9. Do you suggest grass in the pens or dirt? How about straw? Are small trees or shrubs a good addition to the pens?

Grass is good, they love to mow it down, but if your pens are a little on the smaller side, it will disappear. I only use straw if it gets too muddy. If the shrubbery or trees are the only green things in the pen, be prepared to plant ones that the peas won't eat (you'll have to ask others what they use, as I don't keep any other plants in the pens.

So that's all I can think of right now! I'm sure I'll have more questions later. Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[MontanaChet]

Thanks for all the advice Arbor! Its greatly appreciated! I am currently planning on staying small for at least a few years to make sure its something I enjoy and if so, then I may go ahead and work on becoming a large breeder. I have plenty of land to do so and I like the sounds of it but I first have to make sure I enjoy it before I go that far.

If anyone else has more advice to add please do because the more help I get the better!

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Like Zaz, I would just like to add...

 

[casportpony]

X3,

-Kathy

 

[MinxFox]

3. Do you suggest getting hatched chicks or unhatched chicks to start my peafowl? What are the pros and cons of each?

If you haven't hatched eggs before, I would get peachicks instead of eggs. It took me at least two years to finally get an egg to hatch. Peafowl eggs are said to be hard to hatch compared to a chicken egg. In my opinion since you are penning them I would go ahead and start with yearling, two year old, or three year old peafowl. That way you have to wait less time for them to grow up and get all of their color. I started with an adult pair and I made the mistake of free-ranging them too soon. When they both ran away we got the peahen back but couldn't catch the peacock. So I penned the peahen and then got a yearling peahen and a yearling peacock. Then I went crazy not having an adult peacock to look at because I really love the long train on an adult peacock so I got an adult pied peacock.

4. If a peahen isn't bread until she is 3, is that a problem? I assume if I get 4 chicks I hope I get at least on peahen or one peacock so I can breed them but I hear peahens are ready to breed at 1 or 2 and peacocks at 3 and I wonder if that would become a problem for some reason.
Peahens will breed and lay eggs even when I think they are 10 or older...Dylansmom on this site has some old peahens that still lay. I don't have any old birds yet all of mine are still young but they are all breeding age.

5. If you have multiple peacocks, do you have to keep them separated from each other? How many peafowl would you advise per pen (pens being as large as needed, not cramped)?

I only have one pen right now and it has three adult peacocks. For two of the three males this is their first year with a full train and they are doing some fighting even though they grew up together. Their fighting isn't that bad and when one peacock wants to get away he will run and jump into a dog box in their pen. I want to have one male per pen though because that way I can keep track of who is breeding with who. When you have several peacocks in a pen normally only one (the dominant peacock) gets to do all of the breeding and the others don't get to breed at all. This can be bad if you want to say breed whites but your white pair shares the pen with an India blue peacock. The India blue will probably get mating rights because he is colorful and then you won't get any white peachicks from this pen so that is why normally you see breeders keeping 1 peacock in a pen with a few peahens. I personally want to make my setup to where I have one peacock and one peahen in a pen because I want to know who exactly the mom is and who exactly the dad is which is also important because if someone wants to buy a pair from you, you don't want to sell them a pair of related birds.

7. What do you suggest for a brooder box and incubator? What are things to look for in them and/or what one do you suggest specifically?

We have been recently talking about incubators on the 2014 breeding season topic. I use a hovabator incubator and others have said on there that they love their hovabator. I think this is a great incubator to start with. It was my first incubator and is still the only incubator I use. Around here I can find them at the feed store so you might be able to find them at a feed store. They are a styrofoam incubator with good instructions of how to use it. As for where I keep chicks after they hatch, I have a light that I put in a baby crib and keep the peachicks in there. I put down two layers of old towels for the peachicks to poop on so that way I can take out the towels and clean them without getting the bottom of the crib dirty which would be harder to clean. When the peachicks start flying I clip a thin bed sheet to the top of the crib so they can't fly out. Then when they get bigger I move them outside to a small chicken pen we found for sale at a feed store that we modified to add smaller fencing and added a wire floor so that we could keep it above ground for sanitary conditions just to make sure the chicks stay healthy. Then once they get bigger and start to outgrow this pen they get to go into an adult pen.
This is the little peachick crib. The heat lamp inside can be clipped to things so I clip it to a log that I put in there for them to jump on. The larger peachick on top is Peep who is an adult now, but when he was this size he was already in the outside chick pen.


This is the outside chick pen. It is held up by sawhorses. Inside it has a few perches. The side fencing in this photo is too big, later we put chicken wire over that to make it safer for the peachicks. The bottom is chicken wire but we later added smaller plastic mesh so that we can move peachicks out there at even smaller sizes because my parents don't appreciate peachicks in the house as much as I do haha...



8. Should my pens have water plumbed in so I can wash the inside of the shed or does that cause problems (ex: mold, disease, etc.)? I will probably plumb it in for filling water dishes too but wondering on how to best clean the shed and pens.

I have water in my pen that way it is easy to fill the tub of water for the peafowl and also I have my pen planted so it makes it easy to keep all of the plants well watered.

9. Do you suggest grass in the pens or dirt? How about straw? Are small trees or shrubs a good addition to the pens?

When we first built my 40x50ft pen it had grass. After 2 years it no longer had grass and it was all just sandy dirt. I didn't like the way that looked. Many people have just dirt pens or they buy sand and put fresh sand in their pens every now and then and this method works. I personally love having grass in the pen because it is very pretty, the peafowl love eating it, and it hides bugs for the peafowl to eat. I got into gardening when I got into peafowl because I wanted to create a pretty place for these pretty birds to live. I recently wrote an article on my website going over planting your pen and the plants that I use in my aviary that work great for me that have been in there for 4 or so years now. All of these plants have withstood peafowl pecking and trampling. Here is the article: http://www.bamboopeacock.com/Landscaping Your Aviary.html
Anyways like I was saying I wanted grass back in my pen so during the late winter my dad got me a 50 pound bag of ryegrass seed and I sprinkled that seed all over the pen. Once the rains came the grass started growing. It looked so small at first and I wasn't sure how well it would do, but then it got so nice and lush. It is starting to die now that the temps are getting warmer. I will have to look into a good summer grass to plant but both my peafowl and I have really enjoyed the grass.