My First Peacock

[bemba]

Hi guys, just moved onto a 45 acre property in QLD Australia..... beautiful, we have kangaroos, magpie geese, echidna's, plumed whistling ducks and many more! I have guinea's, turkeys, call ducks and some bantam chickens..... Anyway I have always loved peafowl, and had 2 handraised when I was 12, got them from our local produce store as day olds and both were peahens..... anyway I have just bought a fully mature male with his awesome train, and am getting a young peahen tomorrow, and was wondering how long I have to keep them locked up for.... do I really have to wait a few months? And are peahens the ones you let out first? I bought some adult guineas 2 weeks ago and ony penned them for about an hour, and they are lovin life here, are peafowl worse than guinea's for taking off? My local produce has 2 yearling males aswell, can I have 3 males and 1 female short term? just thinking if there are more of thier own kind around are they more likely to stay, any help would be great.

 

[Choctaw Valley Farm]

If your male is old you will have to keep him penned for two or three months so he knows where his food and water is and to also let him know this is home. If you just turn him out he will go back to where you got him from, it is always best to keep at least 1 to 2 hens per male that away they will not fight. If you just want color in your yard and no peachicks get 6 or 8 males and no hens the males will get along good if there is no hen to fight over during breeding season.

Guineas are like chickens they will stick around because they don't know any better, Peafowl are smart and they just want to go home back to what they are use to that is why you have to lock up older birds so they know this is home..

Hope this helps a little.

 

[Kev]

I agree, peafowl are not same as anything else. It's more of better safe than sorry and generally older birds are harder to settle in a new place than birds a year old or younger. No 100% guarantee either way though.

Multiple birds IS better for a free range situation. They are highly social so the remaining birds can act as call backs if a bird happens to wander off. But the problem is, established birds like to challenge the new birds.. this is especially a problem with adult males- introducing a new adult male when there are already adult male and during the breeding season is the worst timing, pretty likely for it to get chased off as soon as it is turned out. Best to wait until all males have shed their tails, when their aggression is at the lowest.

Short term 3 males 1 female will be fine. Peacocks are not like roosters, they don't chase down the girls.. to mate, the males have to display, court the female for a bit and then make a special 'wanna get it on?' call, the hen alone decides if a mating happens or not at all. So having more (adult)males is not really a problem for peahens, perhaps at feeding time the males may boss the females away and hog the feed.

Also very important- when the birds are let loose, don't let anything chase or scare them during the first week(s). They need to learn the general area outside the pen.. trying to chase or capture them may very well just make them fly or run so far away they get permanently lost because they don't know the area. Once they settle in fully, no worries if they get spooked into flying far, they usually come back eventually.

 

[MinxFox]

I agree with Kev everything he said is very true.

I would pen them up for a while, get to know them while they are penned like try to feed them out of your hand, ect. What I noticed after free-ranging some of my peafowl was that they acted totally different than they did penned. It was really neat to see their behaviors change. 45 acres sounds great I am sure the peafowl will love that! Any big trees you have on the 45 acres they will love to roost in at night. If there is a particular place on your property that you want them to hang out at then you could make their pen there so they can see the area where you want them to be so that when relesed they will hang out around there. You said you had some birds already free-ranging and I think that once you let the peafowl out the already free-range birds might help the peafowl know where they should stay or something. The day you let the peafowl out do it when you will have plenty of light to watch them. Don't scare them out of the pen just open the door and they should be watching you so when they see you prop the door open and step back they should get curiouse and eventually one of them will be brave and step out. They might stay near the pen and hang out or they might imeadiately go exploring. My peahen I let out started running and I got so scared she would run away but eventually after herding her and the peacock they flew up into a tree for the night. I think I should have let them out one at a time though. It probably works better that way to keep them around.

 

[Kev]

Excellent additions, MinxFox- agree very much one reason for keeping confined is to get them to accept YOU as the new person bringing the goodies. So when they are out and hungry, they know who to come up and say hey, where's my food/treat. Also not pushing them out of the door is very important.

Also very true about behavior changes, more than a few times birds that were on the shy side suddenly become pretty friendly once free range.

 

[bemba]

Thanks heaps for all the advice guys!!!

Well just picked up my TWO peahens today.... yes, two

the guy knew I wanted a few so decided to bring two sisters who were bonded, they are both split pied. We started talking and he offered for me to follow him to his place to see all his birds, when we arrived I could hear that beautiful call that was all around, and as I got out of the car I was stunned when I saw a white male displaying in the gardens...... very spectacular indeed!!! We went down to his breeding paddocks ( the pens were massive) and had a look, I noticed some eggs in one of his white breeding trios pen, he went in and collected them, then turned to me and said here have these

I nearly fell over LOL, so I have 3 white peafowl eggs, he said he does'nt know if they are fertile but they should be. I have a clucky hen.... best put them under her than in the bator? So excited, funny the people you meet.

 

[Kev]

UNDER HEN! Peafowl eggs are a lot harder to incubate than other eggs.

Congrats on your new and new-er birds plus getting to see his place and birds.

 

[MinxFox]

Wow that sounds really great! It is always wonderful to find a great peafowl breeder, especially one that gives you eggs like that and things. Good luck!

 

[bemba]

Sounds kinda silly, but I have played some peafowl calls off youtube so they could hear, and the male started singing too hahaha LOL...... LOVE the mating call!!

 

[MinxFox]

It is good that you love the call. We do too, but I have heard of some people who have peafowl that don't really like the noise. I personally think the mating call sounds exotic like something you would hear in the jungle.