Does anyone out there have an opinion on letting Peacock and his hen out??

[RoboDuck]

 

[barkerg]

Very nice rooster indeed.

.

Gerald Barker

 

[RoboDuck]

Thanks. He and one of the hens are from KsKingBee.

 

[barkerg]

Thanks.  He and one of the hens are from KsKingBee. 

Do not free range, knowing Kingbee, they are a new mutation of homing peas,

.All comics aside, they are fine birds and will give a lifetime of memories.

Gerald Barker

 

[RoboDuck]

This might explain why they are always facing north northwest with a longing in their eyes....

 

[Trefoil]

If you let them free range the hen will hide the eggs she lays and will be very prone to predators if she goes broody. She will disappear and may be very hard to find.

 

[barkerg]

If you let them free range the hen will hide the eggs she lays and will be very prone to predators if she goes broody.  She will disappear and may be very hard to find.

Agree, they are very sneaky and if they know your watching they will wait it out. Ive had hens leave the roost at night and lay. They can sneak in and out in record time and it seems everytime that Im way out in the field bino's in hand following her every move, it turns up behind a feed bin or right their in plain view.

Gerald Barker

 

[Garden Peas]

I guess I should have mentioned the time line. The latest male just arrived earlier this week. I figured we would bond with them for a couple of weeks before even attempting to let them out of the pen.

Oh yeah, "earlier this week" is too soon

 

[sasglm]

We have 2 'male' IB that are roughly 2yrs old now. We've had them together for about 12months in a cage and they've adapted pretty well. A few worm issues, but that seems to be behind me for now. So, now that spring has sprung we've started to let them out of the cage, at first I would just let one out at a time to see what would happen. Well, it turned out that they are truly buddies and one won't go more than 10ft from the other, so the one I let out would just stay right by the cage. About a 2 weeks ago on a weekend, we let both out to see where they would go. As it turns out, we have a few windows near ground level and they have spend just about every minute of the day going from one window to the other all around the house. So it's good that they certainly stayed close, they seem 100% occupied with their reflections.
At about dusk, they hear me out at their cage and wonder in to get some food and water, and get ready to fly up 6ft to roost.

Mine have not made many sounds yet, no calling and a few clucks when they see something odd, I've gotten to throwing a towel at the window if they get to pecking at it too much and that gets them off pretty quick. They have not flown at all, I thought they might try to get up on a lower roof section, but nope.
They seem to drop most of their poop at night since there always lots of new poo on the ground in the mornings.
Having gotten them out of the cage for a bit has meant I've been able to set some mouse traps and got 5 today from just one trap.

gary

 

[sasglm]

Well, a little sad update to this last post, Saturday was like every day thus far in letting them out and checking on them every 2hrs or so.
I headed out to eat at 6pm and then 45min later came home to find one most of the way down our 600ft driveway and the other no where in sight.
I drove up to the house and didn't see anything out of sorts, then walked down the driveway to see if I could heard this one back. He had walked another 300ft up the street and into the trees, I got near him and herded him a little back our way, but he seamed very agitated for some reason and wouldn't walk with me, he headed off into the woods again into an area where I couldn't follow. I figured he would head back to the house soon enough anyway. I went out again about dusk and walked all over and never could find either one, it rained a little that night and I left their cage door open. So now it's been 2 days and I've not seen or heard anything from them. I'm thinking either a hawk, or a coyote came up to the house, that we never see, and got one and spooked the other really bad and he just took off.
I guess maybe we've learned now that we can't free range in our area with any hope of keeping them safe.
gary