Don't quote me on any of this... I just hatched my first little pair of peachicks and I'm basing care around the things I've read so far. So this is just what *I* have going, someone who's raised more peachicks can probably give you better information.
They need a higher temp in the brooder than chickens do- one place said as high as 101 degrees. They also aren't supposed to have drafts, but they're in a room here with a fan and they don't seem to mind. They don't even like sitting under the heat lamp, but they stay there more now that I put a stuffed animal in for them to cuddle with.
I was advised that they should be fed medicated starter and watered with electrolyte water. Since the two I have are being housed in a brooder with my microduck, they can't have pure medicated starter... so I put a little in their dry food and then offer them a wet mash 3 times a day. It's got medicated starter, ground oatmeal (non instant), mashed hard boiled egg, and plain yogurt (the sort that only has 3 ingredients). I softened it with pedialyte from Meijer (which is a super-center like
Walmart... only not full of scary people). I warm up about half a teaspoon and give it to them off my fingers and they love it. I add liquid bird vitamins and pedialyte to their water tower (~6-8 drops of vitamins and 1/4 the mason jar is pedialyte). I got the vitamins from
Petco. Their dry food is a mix of duck starter, pheasant starter, and a little bit of medicated chick starter.
My brooder is a cardboard box I got from work that I modified with a leak-proof cleanable bottom and a screen cage top I can put the heat lamp on. It's about a foot and a half deep. They've got a quail water tower (I would give them a normal chick waterer, but the duckling they're with will try to sleep in it) boosted on an overturned bowl. They have a furry stuffed animal in one corner (which they use to sleep on/under/near and they lord over the brooder from the top of it). They've got 2 feeders- one is the bottom of the waterer they can't have and one is a bird-cage feeding bowl for parrots. Mostly they eat out of one and the duck eats out of the other and if there's any interchanging, someone's getting their face pecked.
The first 0-8 weeks is supposed to be the most fragile. I don't really know what that means, aside from that I assume most deaths occur during that time.
I don't think they would have a problem being in with chickens, you can probably put the chicks together. They can free range, but from what I understand they don't like to 'come home' at night, instead roosting in trees. I would keep them penned if they're important to you or if you want to breed them. We had an adult peacock (who disappeared one day, we think he heard the peahens at a nearby farm) and we fed him with the chickens- crumbles, cracked corn, and let him free range... and then we nailed little bowls to the highest roost and the fencing he liked to perch on and filled those with kitten food and pheasant crumble because they need higher protein.
Mine personally don't seem to be having any problems except being clingy. They sound like they've swallowed a whistle, wheeeep wheeeeep wheeeeping constantly for me to come over to the brooder. The first one hatched in the middle of the night and I had work in the morning so after a while of listening to a broken little whistle in the incubator, I got up and brought it back to bed with me. It slept under my pillow for the rest of the night, and still loves to take a break from the brooder to come upstairs and snuggle or camp out in my lap under my quite hot laptop while I'm playing games.... I'm probably not supposed to do that, but they are so cuddly and quiet when I do.
