Shall a Single peafowl chick be raised alone?

[chick4chix]

Or does it need a companion? If so... what is the perfect breed of chicken or other poultry that would make a good companion? My grandkids and I found a wild peafowl egg inside a rabbit hole on a hike. They wanted to "save" it- there was no nest around and it was about 10" into a hole - so would not have made it. These trails back up to a huge park that has free-roaming peafowl- that is how I know what the egg is. I told them chances of it being a viable egg were slim- but I put it in my incubator anyway. Since we had no way of knowing when it was laid, or anything about it- I expected nothing. Candled Today (day 8) and there are a wonderful network of veins and an eye! We are thrilled and feel it's miraculous! but now I need to know how to raise the little fella if it makes it the full 28 days to hatch. I have hatched and brooded many chicken chicks -but have no experience with peafowl. I have read it will imprint on me- that is fine- but what about when I'm gone? I think it would be best for it to have another bird companion. I have a place for it once it moves outdoors- it will have a large netted flight aviary on the ground- and we are moving onto acreage before the Fall of this year.
Thanks in advance for any advice. This is really exciting

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Hello c4c,
I'm not sure where you are exactly, but if you would like a peachick companion for your peachick, we're in Ventura County and expecting some hatching to occur soon - and would be very happy to find a good home for peachick(s)!
Feel free to PM me if you like.

 

[chick4chix]

Thanks New 2 pfowl. That may be a little too far for me - I'm in San Diego

I have another question about how you think the egg came to be in such a narrow deep hole- do they normally bury their eggs? It looked to me like it was a rabbit, gopher or snake hole.

 

[Yoda]

Or does it need a companion? If so... what is the perfect breed of chicken or other poultry that would make a good companion? My grandkids and I found a wild peafowl egg inside a rabbit hole on a hike. They wanted to "save" it- there was no nest around and it was about 10" into a hole - so would not have made it. These trails back up to a huge park that has free-roaming peafowl- that is how I know what the egg is. I told them chances of it being a viable egg were slim- but I put it in my incubator anyway. Since we had no way of knowing when it was laid, or anything about it- I expected nothing. Candled Today (day 8) and there are a wonderful network of veins and an eye! We are thrilled and feel it's miraculous! but now I need to know how to raise the little fella if it makes it the full 28 days to hatch. I have hatched and brooded many chicken chicks -but have no experience with peafowl. I have read it will imprint on me- that is fine- but what about when I'm gone? I think it would be best for it to have another bird companion. I have a place for it once it moves outdoors- it will have a large netted flight aviary on the ground- and we are moving onto acreage before the Fall of this year.
Thanks in advance for any advice. This is really exciting

Any baby chick will do. The baby chick will actually teach the peachick how to eat and drink. I always hatch a chicken chick or two when hatching pea eggs for this reason. I had silkie, cochin and bantam chicks in with my peachicks LOL

The peahen will lay an (one) egg in different places most being laid in a depression/hole in the ground til she finds the right spot and then she will lay her clutch of eggs and sit on them. She most likely misjudged the hole as not being too deep LOL

 

[chick4chix]

Oh, thank you Yoda! I'm on day 9 so it's probably too late to put chicken eggs in the bator, but when I get closer and it looks like it will hatch, I'll find a couple of day-old chix and put them in the brooder together. PHEW!! I was worried about blackhead, and also worried about having the peachick being alone.

lol- on the hen misjudging the depth of the hole! We figured she went to cover the egg with leaves and accidentally scratched it in there- either that or a predator was burying it for later. There would have been no way she would ever get it out- I had to use a long stick to gently roll it back up the hole, and it slipped back in a couple of times.
Thanks again!

 

[MinxFox]

Good luck with the egg I hope it develops and hatches for you! Have you candled it yet?

 

[BarnHouseHLC]

This is a timely thread for me. I came here looking for the answer to that same question. We found a pea egg on May 1st and stuck it in the incubator to see what would happen. Our free-ranging peafowl have chicks every year, but we figured it wasn't fertile since it was laid in the back of a pickup. It was raining quite hard the day it was laid and the peas sometimes shelter in the carport so I guessed the egg was on the move but she couldn't get to her spot because of the downpour.

Well, it hatched out yesterday, and I am just in love with the little guy. He's so lonely, though. He cries sometimes in the brooder and I realize now that he needs some bird companionship. We didn't think our experiment through so well.

We have some 5-7 week old chickens around. They are Ameracaunas, Copper Marans and Dominiques. Does anyone know if any of those breeds would be best, or are they just too old to begin with?

Should I try to find a few day olds or maybe 1-2 week old chicks instead? Would observing the older chicks for a bit to pick out the most docile for my little pea's friends maybe work?

I'm not sure what the long-term solution will be. We thought we'd try to get one of the peahens to adopt it, but we haven't seen them in a couple weeks which means they are sitting on some eggs somewhere and they probably won't let this little guy tag along once they have some new chicks trailing them. Plus, s/he will have spent that much more time with us humans forgetting how to be a bird.

I just want this little one to be happy and try to do right by him/her, since I decided to mess with nature without having a plan. @chick4chix - I admire the foresight.

Thanks for all the help ya'll can give,
Maria

 

[MinxFox]

I incubated two eggs one year and only one hatched (well more like we had to help it out). The one that hatched imprinted to me and would cry when I left the room. My solution was to carry him around in a lunchbox padded with a towel. He would sleep in there while I carried him around the house. I took him outside to explore, etc. When he got larger maybe a foot long or a little less, I was given three younger white peachicks. He picked on them so I kept them separate for a bit and every now and then I would put them together supervised. The imprinted peachick, Peep, wanted nothing to do with these new chicks. He was very friendly I would take him out of his outdoor chick pen and let him scratch around and dust bathe, etc. He would tolerate being kept with the white chicks but really he was a people bird. Now he is a mature peacock at three years old. He loves displaying for my foot and tries to mate with it. He is with several other peafowl and has learned how to be a peafowl but is still very friendly to people and always wants to be pet. He paces the fence when I drive up and when I leave because he wants to follow me and see me. He is having issues right now because I have him in a pen with two other males, one happens to be one of those white peachicks all grown up now. This white peacock he grew up with is now fighting him and picking on him. My poor boy doesn't seem to be a good fighter, but I am going to make him his own pen for him and a white peahen he grew up with.

I don't have chickens so I haven't put them in with peachicks so I can't help there as far as if they will pick on them or not. I know Zazouse on here keeps tons of different kinds of bird chicks (including peachicks) in one pen and they seem to be of varying ages.

I personally had fun raising a lone peachick, but it does take a lot of time since you are all they have. I like having my peahens raise the chicks just because I get so worried incubating eggs.

I want to ask you a question: How do you keep your free-range peahens safe when they are on the nest? Someday I want to free-range again when I live somewhere else but I don't want all the peahens being eaten.

 

[casportpony]

Oh, thank you Yoda! I'm on day 9 so it's probably too late to put chicken eggs in the bator, but when I get closer and it looks like it will hatch, I'll find a couple of day-old chix and put them in the brooder together. PHEW!! I was worried about blackhead, and also worried about having the peachick being alone.

lol- on the hen misjudging the depth of the hole! We figured she went to cover the egg with leaves and accidentally scratched it in there- either that or a predator was burying it for later. There would have been no way she would ever get it out- I had to use a long stick to gently roll it back up the hole, and it slipped back in a couple of times.
Thanks again!

No need to worry about blackhead until your peachick's feet or beak touch the dirt or a surface that chickens have been on. Would be best to find a chicken chick that has never been outside of a brooder, then you should be okay. Many peafowl breeder keep their peachicks off the ground until they are several months old, so you might want to think about that.

-Kathy

 

[chick4chix]

Thank you Minx- yes I candled it before I started incubating (because I didn't know how old the egg was- just to make sure the yolk was freemoving and not calcified). At day 7 I saw the beginning of what I thought were veins, and then at day 9- a large network of veins and also an eye. I'm now at day 12- and wondered if I should be seeing movement? I don't see any movement- but it's dark in the center. Still seeing lots of veins- but when I hold the egg real still there is no obvious movement. I have hatched dark chicken eggs I couldn't see into very well- so I'm just wondering how much should be filling the egg and whether I should be seeing obvious movement by day 12??

Thanks Kathy (casportpony) for the blackhead info- I was planning on raising the chicken chick and peachick where I have a large netted run- but there are two senior hens in there (after they are out of the brooder)- should I create a new run where no chickens have gone before?

Barnhouse- I was afraid after reading the peachick info that they imprint strong that I might be in for it, if I don't find a companion haha. Good luck with your little guy!

Thanks everyone!