Keeping Peafowl

[WillGriffin03]

Hi,

I'm thinking of purchasing some peafowl and i'm just looking for some tips on keeping them, letting them free range, when to keep them cooped up and compatibility with chickens and roosters (2)


TIA,
William

 

[Dany12]

Free range .... depends on your neighbors !!!
Peacocks love the company of other poultry!
Choose calm birds.

 

[Midnightman14]

It is not recommended that peafowl be kept with chickens and other types of poultry besides pheasants. Chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, etc. have all been domesticated for hundreds if not thousands of years. This means they are immune to many diseases that will kill peafowl. People do it and might not initially have problems but it's one of those things where everything's fine until it's not. Any birds you get should be penned for a minimum of 4 months but longer is better. One tip I would give is to worm your peafowl regularly using Valbazen or another wormer. Stay away from wazine it doesn't kill the disease causing parasitic worms.

 

[Dany12]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/peafowl-history

I raise peacocks free ranging together with ... guinea fowls .... chickens ... geese without ever deworming!
Sparrows can bring diseases ... too!

... we talk about free range!

 

[Midnightman14]

Sooner or later there will be trouible I did it for several years without problems and then one year lost several breeders to blackhead. Just because it is done doesn't mean it's good husbandry.

 

[Dany12]

Whith peacock there are 3 diseases:
1 - Blackhead ..... they can die!
2 - Infectious coryza.... not very contagious (why 1 eye and rarely both?)
3 - respiratory problems .... they can die!

Symbtoms are easy to recognize.

The other diseases are very rare!

 

[casportpony]

Sooner or later there will be trouible I did it for several years without problems and then one year lost several breeders to blackhead. Just because it is done doesn't mean it's good husbandry.

Quite right. @Midnightman14 , what's the soil like in your area?

 

[Peckar]

So can they pretty much be free ranged if you love nowhere near anyone with little problems in that type of thing.

 

[Midnightman14]

It's about as bad as you can get pathogen wise. Almost as black as the topsoil you can get at a garden center and rich in organics. In the last two years we've had alot of rain as well which makes for a big mess. This year I plan to take additional steps to kill pathogens and parasites in my pens. I will be removing the birds and scorching the ground regularly with a propane torch to kill off whatever is living on the ground including bacteria and worms.