Help with food ideas

[katielady12]

Hello, I would like to know what has been working for everyone's peafowl as far as food. I feed mine a organic chicken scrach along with game bird, some goat feed, crack corn, and sunflower seeds. I want to give my birds some other things but I have no luck. I have tried bananas, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, squash ,oatmeal, grapes strawberries and they don't eat any of that. I end up taking it out at the end of the day and giving it to my chickens. They will eat bread but I know that is not very good for them.They do however eat mealworms. I just shake the can and they come running. They are not free range.
Thanks for any ideas. I want to give them different things.

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Hello and

!!

Have you already taken a look at the stickies for general feeding info? (see below).
And, if you do a search you will find much has been written already on this forum that may answer your questions!

"Sticky" Threads for the "Peafowl" forum:

• Peafowl - "Sticky" topics index

 

[katielady12]

I understand that there is a lot about feeding and have read A LOT about feeding! I just wanted to know some other ideas. Everything I have read I have tried.

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Well, one thing ours love that isn't on your list is peanuts (no shells, not salted). They go crazy for them.
They also like millet, especially if you make little piles so they can scoop it up easily.
I'm sure you will get other suggestions!

 

[zazouse]

Do you have an area you can grow them some greens? Peas are quirky, mine will eat just about anything in the way of fresh foods , but I started them out young, I garden year round and have land to grow food patches for my birds so they have learned to eat a very wide variety of food stuffs.
Try stuff more than once, the next time cut it smaller and give it to them, I have close to 40 peas and all of them love bananas but some will not touch them if they are not small enough, they are fickled !

 

[3BirdGirlz]

Mine didn't want to try new things for a while! How old are yours? I started with meal worms, then gave them alfalfa hay (it was winter when I got them do no fresh grass). They finally decided they liked picking around in the hay. They love cat food. I bought red leaf lettuce and cut it up small over last winter. I grew it for them this summer they also like fresh alfalfa and grass now. I gave them pumpkin this past week...it took over a day for them to try it! They also like apple peels if they're small enough. Just keep trying!

 

[mbbrinegar]

Mine are real picky too. Try putting a corn on the cob in their pen and see if they start picking at after a while. It took mine a day before they tried it now they eat it every time they see it.

 

[katielady12]

Yes I have tried corn on the Cobb with no luck. Guess I will try alfalfa and see how that works. Maybe peanuts also.
Thanks for the suggestions!!!

 

[BYC-user-174785]

It takes my peas some time to learn to eat some treats, but once they figure it out they usually readily eat it. My peafowl love cat food, bread, apples, floating catfish food (have it for diving ducks but tried giving it to peas one day and they love it. It also is high in protein) but they absolutely love watermelon. All of my birds do.

 

[MinxFox]

I also give my peafowl the catfish food. I hand raised one and he had trouble getting used to eating food unlike the others who really gobble down food. It used to take him a ton of tries to eat the round catfish food. I went to visit a large peafowl breeder and I gave his birds some bread and most of them looked at it, pecked at it, then walked away! I don't think they are used to bread...

Sometimes it takes them time to get used to things. I have a peacock named Alto that loves tomatoes a bunch. He will eat a cherry tomato whole and he will stuff himself full of big slices of tomato. You can get a big head of lettuce and stuff it into the fence so that the fence holds the lettuce securely while the peas peck at the lettuce. Another thing you can try is using a grater to grate things like apples, cucumbers, and carrots for the peas. My peafowl hardly ever eat carrots or apples but when I grate them into small long, thin slices they love it! We always give them apples that get too old for us to eat. They get a lot of leftovers as treats. They will eat leftover rice, etc. They also love green beans but you have to make sure they are broken up into bite size pieces.

My peafowl didn't like bananas for a while but now they like them. I think they have to get used to the consistency of them. Peafowl LOVE blue berries. They squeak for them and run to get them.

Here is a list on my website of many different treats for peafowl and info about these treats: http://www.bamboopeacock.com/Treats_for_Peafowl.html

With many treats they just have to be broken up into bite size pieces unless if you have birds like a few of mine who really inhale their treats. Sometimes Alto bites my fingers trying to grab as much as he can of the tomato. He is so funny! My white peacock Frosty will eat treats so fast that he starts making these strange breathing noises.

The peanuts are definitely a good thing to try...I trained my first peafowl to eat out of my hand by using peanuts.