Mixed up mothers?

[Snow Briar]

So we had two mother peacocks. One had two chicks, the other had four. The one with two ended up in the cage for babies, but the one with four is roaming free.

Long story short the four babies somehow found their way into the cage with the other mother and seemed to have adopted her out of the blue. But a day or so later one of them has wandered out of the cage and got back with it's true mama and is out following her around. Now, there is only three mixed up babies in the cage. I noticed that they were kind of avoiding the adopted mom today, and also that one of them is sick on the corner. So... what's going on?

Is it even possible for chicks to get moms mixed up? Peachicks form a very strong bond with their parents so even if it was possible in chickens would it be possible in peafowl?

I plan on catching the two that are still fairly well and seeing which of the two mothers responds to their flock call.

The sick chick I am currently trying to help heal, I'll talk about that in another post.

 

[ackie]

I would make sure they can't get through the cage wall and have to stay with whichever mother they're following now. If some of them are following neither mother, I'd put them in a brooder with heat and care for them myself.

 

[KsKingBee]

Put both hens together so they can co-mom. They will sort it out but the problem you have now is that one mom can not cover all five and the one chick got either chilled or is coming down with cocci.