Housing for peahen and peachicks?

[WordHulveyHomestead]

We have a peahen we knew was sitting on eggs. She came home with 4 peachicks the other day!

We managed to get her into a 10x12 section of our old barn that was empty.

We kept her and the babies in last night.

My question is do we keep them inside or do we let her out?

We free range chickens, turkeys, ducks, guineas, peacocks and peahens and although nowhere is ever totally predator proof, we’ve done all we can and rarely loose any birds to predators.

All of our peafowl are free range and have never been cooped up so I worry if this will cause the momma stress?

The road we live on has recently become busier as people are building nearby. I often need to chase the peacocks back into the yard so the road is also a concern.

Anyway if I do keep them cooped for safety sake, when do I let them out (meaning what age should the chicks be)?

Also, if cooped do I feed them chick starter? And if yes, is the medicated starter okay for them?

Thanks

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Cute babies! I feed my peafowl 24% gamebird starter feed.

 

[red horse ranch]

I always keep all my hens with babies confined until the little ones are at least 3 weeks old. Being confined doesn't seem to bother hens for the first couple of weeks.

 

[Midnightman14]

I'd think about penning your birds before they start getting hit on the road. It's not a matter of if but when it will happen.

 

[WordHulveyHomestead]

I worry a lot about that. We actually sort of inherited these peafowl. The man we bought the house from had them and couldn’t take them with him.
He let them go wherever. Sometimes they are gone for days and I worry that they got hit. One male is actually missing and we think someone may have taken him.
We’ve done our best to read about taking care of them and they seem happy and healthy but I don’t know the first thing about penning them. Someone told us to clip their wings which I cannot/will not do.
We’ve also thought of taking them to a bird preserve as well (but if I’m honest I’d miss them terribly).*I would though to keep them safe*

They are around 2 years old and have always been free range and to my knowledge never penned/cooped.

I would love suggestions on how we might pen them and keep them happy.