Perfect peacock to hen ratio?

[WW Farms]

Hi everyone. I'm new to peafowl and hope to hatch some this spring to add to my flock. Right now I just have 7 chickens. We just moved to the mountains on 22 acres so my hubby gave me the green light for my peacock dreams! What is the ideal ratio for male to female. We are raising just for pets, not breeding. Any advice?

 

[AugeredIn]

When the males are two years old they can probably handle only two hens. By the time they are four we have them with up to five hens. I try to at least have three hens in each pen.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

My top pen last year was with my Black Shoulder Silver pieds. My male named Roadtrip was with 2 bssp hens,and 3 pied hens.Roadtrip was 6yrs old last year and 3 of these hens was 4-6 yrs old,other two hens was 4 yrs old. Welcome to BYC.

 

[zazouse]

My first male turned 3 years old just after breeding season was over and he was able to cover 7 hens and gave me a lot of babies out of my 2 year old hens.
Are you wanting to free range them? Cause that is when you are more likely to loose the females, they will run off to god knows where to lay and sit and unless you are their when they come up from sitting you most likely will not find them unless you just happen to spot them close by. It took me days of watching 7 different hens all the time to figure out where they were laying and then sitting cause they would also lay a decoy nest, pretty smart birds.

 

[WW Farms]

I'm planning to free range them when they get big enough. We will keep them with the chickens until then. The chickens have a run attached to the coup but also are let out to free range at times.

I'm less worried about breeding as that is so far in the future plus they'll mostly be just pets. Just thinking that I would use the peacocks to "protect" the entire flock rather then get a rooster. Or should I have a rooster until the peacocks get older?

 

[zazouse]

My peas do not protect the flocks I have dogs for that but the peas will chase strange critters right off my land if I do not keep an eye on them.

they are good alarms but ya got to be there to protect them if you do not have other means to do so, like I said I use dogs here and my losses are none in the 3 and a half years I have had them here.

 

[WW Farms]

We have a dog too and are hoping to get another (anyone know if a good Great Pyrenees breeder in Eastern Wa?).

 

[MinxFox]

Welcome to BYC!!! Congrats on being able to get peafowl!

Have you thought about what kind of varieties you might want, or are you just wanting India Blues? There are over 225 varieties so there is a lot to choose from if you want to have different kinds - Whites, pieds, black shoulder...

What Zazouse can tell you is if you have a white peafowl they can be helpful when you are searching for where your peafowl are. Even a colorful peacock can blend in with the bushes.

 

[WW Farms]

Thanks! We are happy with any breed we can find. Right now I'm still researching and trying to find eggs that aren't too expense and preferable won't have to be shipped, but I haven't had luck in Eastern Washington yet. I'm thankful for all of your advice and enthusiasm! It seems peafowl might be more finicky then chicken hatching, so I don't want to break the bank as I get the feel for it (I do have a pretty good track record with chickens though).

 

[frenchblackcopper]

You probably won't see many,if any peafowl eggs for sale until April-May,,peas only lays eggs 3-4 months out of the year.The farther north you are,they seem to start laying later. And unless you source the eggs from less than 300 miles away,or two day mail delivery,,you will undoubtedly,as many here can attest to,,spend a LOT,,a LOT of money on shipped eggs with very few hatched peachicks.I spent many hundreds of dollars when I started in Peafowl buying peacock eggs to hatch,,until I started putting a pencil to it,and buying live adults really didn't seem too high a price compared to buying 5 eggs for $20 each and not one developing or hatching.