Curious About Peafowl

[MinxFox]

I use knotted netting for the top. You can get specific kinds that work well in windy conditions. You can make fencing, concrete, or maybe metal go a few feet underground to protect against predators digging in. You can also surround the pen with a hotwire.

 

[Bluebonnet]

Do you think that possums could be an issue? In Florida, there was this large dog sized possum who used to come up on the back porch. Chewed a hole right through the mesh screen. It had HORRIBLE ugly teeth and I am pretty sure it was diseased. I do not know if they have them in Texas but I would worry about something that could actually CHEW though a porch screen.

Peacocks are pretty birds and I am sure they probably look like a tasty meal and easy score to other animals here in the States.

Do you know if peacocks do well with dogs? I have a miniature long-haired dachshund but she is really old and is can't hurt a thing. She yaps like a big dog but then if the creature or person gets close, she cowers. It is pathetically endearing really. When she passes on, I would like to get some hunting dogs. Dachshunds are little badger diggers but this time around I believe I would like something a little bigger.

 

[MinxFox]

I have had opossums come to the pen and I have trapped them too. My dad said they could kill a peafowl but they might not be fast enough to catch one. I think it would be nice to have mesh netting (not chicken netting, but something zoo grade), but I don't know how expensive that would be...

We had a miniature poodle that we let into the peafowl pen. She was a good dog and was only interested in sniffing around the pen. Well my smallest peahen sneaks up to the dog and jumps on her! Since then our poodle was very afraid of the peafowl, except she did act like she wanted to eat Peep when he was a peachick. Zazouse has lots of dogs with all of her birds. I think with lots of work and maybe raising them with birds she has gotten them trained to not hurt, but look after the birds. When you free-range peafowl you have to be careful that dogs don't scare them so much that they fly away. I don't know if our new poodle is afraid of the birds or not. I know that for some reason she is really scared of big dogs. She yells very loudly when she is near a big dog as if it were trying to kill her even though the dog is not even sniffing her! Silly pup.

 

[Bluebonnet]

That sounds like quite the sight. Gotta love all of those personalities in one place! That must be one brave peahen to jump on a predator like that. I can only imagine what she would be like protecting her eggs.

 

[MinxFox]

Actually she was killed by a raccoon before she could have peachicks...But I know she would have been a great mom. I got her from a guy who kept most of his peafowl free-ranging so she was from a free-range peahen and she grew up free-ranging. My peacock Alto is pretty tough though...Around the time that peahen was killed I noticed he had some neck feathers missing and realized he had a bite mark on his neck there, so something tried to get him.