Size ideas for a new pen?

[MinxFox]

There are some things I have memorized about peafowl like there are 225 varieties and stuff like that, but when it comes to pens I guess since I don't talk about them that much I don't have much knowledge about pen size and how much is just right...

My first pen for my first pair (Fire and Ice) was a rushed pen so that was way too tiny...I definitely know this is too small:

Then I now I went way over the minimum amount I needed for a pen for around 5 peafowl with our huge 40x50ft aviary which who knows how many peafowl I could be fitting into that...

So as you can see I haven't gotten the whole pen size thing down yet. What I am looking for is a good breeder pen that will have enough room for maybe three peafowl but also some room for the peahens to raise peachicks that would be sold when they got around adult size. Also I don't want the ground in the pen to turn into dirt without grass which I guess happens when you don't have enough ground or too many birds and they trample the grass...

Does anyone have magic numbers that work for them really well for peafowl breeding pens? I don't want them to have not enough space and I kinda don't like narrow runs for peafowl because it seems like the peacocks have a harder time displaying in those so does anyone have a nice more square-like breeder pen?

I think I will also check out some peafowl breeder websites like Texaspeafowl, legg's peafowl, Hopkin's livestock, etc to see their pen sizes. I am trying to get a good range of different pen sizes to compare all the pens and see which one would work best for our situation.

 

[zazouse]

IMO,
I think all your beautiful pens should be 40 By 50, it just gives me a feeling they are free with all that room.
After watching mine for the last 18 months in a natural habitat i think the bigger the better as they are very large birds and seem to thrive on change here.
They don't really ever range the same place for more than a few days and investigate anything out of place.
Watching them play ring around the dump truck or tree is the most wonderful thing i ever seen, after all they are birds but playful birds.
They are smart too, when they fly over the fence they don't pace back and forth to get back in like guineas and chickens, they fly right over.

If your pens are big you can observe the entire pea family , my peas have never once offered to hurt any other baby bird hatched here, but they do go after the mother hen if she jumps them just for walking by or taking a look.


Go big if ya can my friend.

 

[MinxFox]

Well I certainly want to go 40x50. I am in love with that size pen and I already know if we were to make another 40x50 pen I have ideas on how to make a better one, for example now I know where to get good netting that won't break so easily like the stuff I have now or we could use chicken wire for the top. The problem is the area we have our pen in. The pen is in a section of the yard that is between a tall bush fence and a regular fence and not too far from the pen is the barn. We need enough space to drive the truck by the pens to reach the barn and we can't get too close to the oak tree either because then we will hit the roots.

The way my dad was motioning to were we will put the pen today, it looks like it might have to be a little smaller. To tell you the truth after looking at some websites I really don't like breeder pens. They just seem too cramped to me. Maybe we could build a giant pen and have a huge truck door and we could drive through the pen to get to the barn lol! The fences really make it a little hard to work with...We have 10 acres and the pen is not in a good area to access the free space. We would like to make the new pen next to the existing one.

I think I will try and make it as big as possible. Who says I have to have 8' by 24' or 10' 42' breeder pens like other people? I do like the big wide pens better... I will have to see how much space we can use in total without taking up driving space or tree space and then that will be the pen hopefully.

 

[Yoda]

My pen is 65w x 45d and 6 high but only at the perimeter, over 12 feet high in the centers. I put up a temp fence 10 feet in from each end and 45 deep for the 2 breeding pens. That leaves me a 45 x 45 foot pen in the middle. When breeding season is over I just take down the temp fence and open it back up. I will be adding more breeder pens onto this large pen this year, but those will remain breeder pens.

 

[clinton9]

Alea,
Don't forget the big new pens for your green peafowls.

Had you built the pens for green peafowls ???

Don't forget about green peachicks you hope to buy and you wanted pure (no hybrid birds) green peafowls.

 

[MinxFox]

The pens are mainly for the peachicks I have now. I am trying to separate all the birds in to breeding groups but it is a little confusing...

My dad is all for new pens and he is talking about making 2 new pens but my mom doesn't understand why we need more pens and doesn't understand why we can't keep all the peafowl in the big pen. That is a lot to keep together and also I told her it would be even more confusing during breeding season. One parent says one thing and the other has a whole other idea so it is hard to know what I can do.

We are going to have a hunting friend help us. He needs some money to join a hunting club so we are going to pay him and he has grown up with chickens so he knows all about making bird pens and his coon dog pens are wonderful. It should be pretty fun to have him working with us.

Yoda I really like that idea! Some breeder websites do talk about having a large pen for the peafowl when it is not breeding season but temporarily sectioning off a large pen for breeding sounds really cool and space saving.

 

[deerman]

i used 10 X 30 and 12 X 36 for breeding pens, one peacock and up tp 6 peahens. most all my peafowl where housed in a large flight pen with a barn thru our winters.

 

[deerman]

Leggs has some good pics of pens....also Doug(L & M FARMS )has a good idea on auto water for each pen, for your area...

 

[MinxFox]

Thanks deerman! Thanks for telling me how many you could fit in the pen. Some pens I really love are the ones at the Peacock Kingdom in Australia. They have a new pen for their green peafowl that they don't show on their website but it has grass instead of sand and it looks really nice. http://peacock-kingdom.com/photo-gallery/peafowl-pen/

Since visiting Glen (the person I got Dragon and Pip from) around Thanksgiving we noticed that he had made two new peafowl pens. We liked how he used connected metal poles for his pen and I think that is what my dad has in mind for these new pens. My dad is mainly the person who comes up with what materials we should use for the pen and I just do the beautifying of the pen by adding a bunch of plants here and there and doing whatever my dad says like hold this and pass him the post hole digger or something...