Free Range Peacocks?

[jak2002003]

I am about to move house.. and we will have a lot more land than we did before.

I currently keep Japanese Bantams and fancy pigeons - which all free range.

I would love to have a pair of peafowl....

Can I treat them the same as the chickens... allowing them to free range during the day and lock them in a coop at night?

I would keep them penned up for a few weeks to get them used to me and the area. I would hate them to just wander away and not return.

 

[bugglesmommy]

You will need to keep them penned for far more then a few weeks or else they will take off on you. More like several months. I personally hatched my own peacocks and raised them with turkeys and turned them out at bout 6 months old and they have not taken off. They wander all over the property but stay at home.

 

[jak2002003]

Do you recommend I start with chicks rather than adults? Then I could mix them in with my bantam flock and they might learn the daily routine from them.

Also can they eat the same food as the chickens or do they need a special diet?

I have located a farm near me that sells the Indian Blue Peacocks and he sells them at various ages.

 

[Dany12]

To buy peacock eggs is a good solution , your Japanese Bantams can hatch peacock eggs !
But now, I think it's too late for peacock egg in Thailand... end of the season !
Your neighbor perhaps can sell a mother bantam with peafowl babies .

"Also can they eat the same food as the chickens or do they need a special diet?"
Totally the same ! ... a lot of grass.

Leo on this forum live in Thailand ( Chiang mai ).
http://www.prani-breeding-center.com/

 

[casportpony]

Keeping turkeys or peafowl with chickens can be problematic.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/804570/coping-with-blackhead

-Kathy

 

[jak2002003]

Keeping turkeys or peafowl with chickens can be problematic.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/804570/coping-with-blackhead

-Kathy

I intend to give the peafowl their own coop next to the bantams coop.. with a small pop hole for the bantams so the peacocks can't squeeze in there.

But they will all be free ranging on the land together.. with my pigeons, doves and ducks.

Its a big area... and no fences, so they can go into the forest or into the rice fields. So they should not be fighting as they get in each others way.

 

[casportpony]

Did you read the link I posted?

-Kathy

 

[MinxFox]

Its a big area... and no fences, so they can go into the forest or into the rice fields.

Are you the owner of the rice fields or are the owners nice? I am just asking because I read that there have been issues with rice farmers not liking how green peafowl go into their rice fields and eat their crops, so they poison them. I am not saying all rice farmers would do that, but I just want to make sure your birds would be appreciated and not hated. In my opinion I think they would help pick bugs out of the rice field.

 

[jak2002003]

Did you read the link I posted?

-Kathy

Yes, thanks Kathy... it was very informative.

If I let my peacocks out they are going to come into contact with chickens anyway. So I will just have to deal with the black head disease if and when it happens.

Here in rural Thailand there are Thai Game chickens EVERYWHERE. They fly into every ones garden, they are walking up and down the street, and even go into the small local shops and peck around under the tables!! They walk around the market stalls, eating scraps. There are even lots of domestic ducks in the rice fields, that, I am sure, will wander onto my land.

Its going to be impossible to isolate the peafowl from these birds. Even penning them up and never letting them out won't work, as these feral chickens may wander right up to the aviary mesh and linger about there, and the peacocks may eat stuff through the holes in the mesh.

I have never know anyone's chickens get black head here. Maybe the weather is too hot and day (now in the dry season). Temps easily get up in the high 30s, and even well over 40 in the hot dry season. which in not sadly gaining heat day by day.. phew!!!

 

[jak2002003]

Are you the owner of the rice fields or are the owners nice? I am just asking because I read that there have been issues with rice farmers not liking how green peafowl go into their rice fields and eat their crops, so they poison them. I am not saying all rice farmers would do that, but I just want to make sure your birds would be appreciated and not hated. In my opinion I think they would help pick bugs out of the rice field.

that's a great point.. something that did not cross my mind.

The farmer which the rice fields belong to lives next door to me.

I talked to him about it and he sad there was no problem if my peacocks went into his field.... particularly as I was only getting one pair.

They grow the young rice in their own plots before planting them in the main paddy fields to mature. This nursery area is very far from my land... I think the peafowl would be too lazy to walk all that way. If they did, then I would just keep them penned up until the rice was planted out.

I don't think the peafowl will wade about through the muddy water of the fields to eat the growing rice. Well I hope not!! Do they like water?

I told the farmer he can have all my peacocks tail feathers when he sheds them. They fetch a good price as decorations here. He was happy about that suggestion too.