ANy Tips on what I can plant in my Aviary with my Peafowl? Want some color in there.

[Joe.G]

I have tried leaving them in pots they destroy them. I try to make it pretty for them and they treat it like a salad bar, But oh well I ';ll keep trying.

 

[GardienneWings]

I have bamboo, forsythia, and red barberry planted around the outside of the big pen to deter predators as much as anything else. The peas only seem to pick at the new growth but they do that as far out as they can reach :-/ Maybe using a netting or wire "cage" over plants until they become established would help? I know too that when the trees over our pens drop their buds and leaves the birds make short work of those too.

Val

 

[Joe.G]

I want Bamboo, Just don't want to spend a bunch of money and have them eat it all up with in a hour.

 

[GardienneWings]

Mine don't eat the larger leaves they seem to only like the new shoots. So, as long as you start with a pot of decent size stalks you should be good (unless yours are less picky than mine).

Val

 

[Joe.G]

I have no idea I have tried a bunch of different stuff and they eat it like they have never eaten before.

 

[MinxFox]

When we first build the big Aviary I have now ~40x50ft., we bought some clumping bamboo for the pen. Bamboo can be pricey as the large ones were $100.00 or something like that. We did not want to spend much so we asked for a very small pot. We got a pot of two or three very thin, yellowed, short canes (the canes were supposed to be green). The peafowl didn't eat the leaves or shoots, and now it has matured very very nicely. You can certainly start with something small when it comes to bamboo and it won't be long before it is big (I didn't even do all the things the bamboo seller told me to do to the bamboo and it is growing really well, although I do put peafowl poop around it occasionally).

This year my peafowl pecked at a few of the new shoots, but I would say there are around 20 new shoots so they definitely have not eaten on nearly all of them. I read that in the fall or winter you should cut any of the canes that are getting old or don't look so pretty. There are some center canes that I think I should trim because they are looking yellow and they are small.

Sometimes you have to put a fence around the plant until it is large enough. A lot of people do that to help keep plants thriving in the pen. I planted a cyad in the aviary that I got for cheep on the side of the road. Some landscapers had to dig up all of someone's cyads and then they didn't know what to do with them so they decided to sell them. We put it in the ground and all the leaves died off of it. I thought it was dead until this year when it sprouted leaves. Cyads have very tough leaves, but the new leaves are very very tender, which was irresistible to my peafowl. Sooo I got lucky and found some old screening and wrapped it around the top of the cyad to prevent my birds from picking at the new leaves. It has worked very nicely.

If you are not sure about spending the money on more plants, go into the woods and pick out a nice tree or bush and dig it up. Look for one that is taller than a peafowl so that they cannot eat all of the leaves on it.

Oh one more thing, some evergreen trees have popped up in my pen, and I noticed the peafowl never eat on those. They are kinda Christmas tree-like. I don't know exactly what kind of tree they are.

 

[Joe.G]

That is where most of the Plants and bushes that I used came from, my woods, I have Young evergreens growing also and I may try them, I have looked into Bamboo and may still try a few smalls out. I really want it to look good but they fight me every step of the way.

 

[MinxFox]

If all else fails, you can always just plant around the outside of their pen. There are some nice plants I really like that I just can't plant in their pen because the plants are too tender. For example I can't plant bananas in their pen. I planted a banana in their pen once and they tore it up so much that they ate it all the way to the ground. So now the bananas are outside the pen, but they can still sometimes reach a banana leaf to nibble.

The lantanas in my pen are supposed to be poisonous (they started growing in the pen on their own. I never planted them). I sometimes see the peafowl eat leaves off of it, but that is rare. Now a few days ago I saw some eating berries off of it. I am not really worried thought. I think there are some "toxic plants" that birds can eat. I read recently that I think it was Tragopans eat rododendrons in the wild.