So happy to be here!

[Teva]

Well, I knew about BYC while I was researching chicken breeds, but I had NO IDEA there was a peafowl forum, I wish I would have found this before I got the notion to get a pair of peafowl

I lived in Germany for two years and my neighbors farm had a pair. I LOVED THEM. They were WHITE! I had never seen nor heard of white peacocks before. Stunning. And I loved their cat calls.

So here I am, 8 beautiful acres, 20 years later, and I decided I want some chickens a month ago. Then I come across an add for a pair of peacocks for sale locally. 2 years old.

I went and picked them up. Couldn't be any more difficult than chickens, right?

He doesn't have black shoulders, so I guess he is an IB. Beautiful colors!! And she is pretty too. I named them Will and Kate (their previous names were pretty lame - NBC and ABC. I know, right??) They immediately gravitated to our wood shed and the small fallen trees behind it for roosting. The farm that I picked them up from had them free range. So I let them go right out of the car and on to the ground too. This was about 3 weeks ago. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and this was the tail end of a weeks worth of freezing/snowy weather. I wasn't aware that I should keep them in a pen (which I don't have) to make sure they know this is home first.

It took about two weeks of shooing them off of my car and husbands truck in our car port. They don't get on them anymore. I also noticed they don't eat a whole lot. I thought it was the stress of moving. (Thank you, forum!) I am feeding them wild game feed and the occasional berry, apple cores, wild bird seed, some dog and cat food for a treat.

Last week they started wandering off of the property onto the neighbors. Not sure why, it's a pretty far walk. We live about 1/4 mile away from each other. I know they are walking, because a few days before that, I noticed Will's left wing looked broken. Since my neighbor is a vet tech, I asked her to help me check it out. It is broken at the joint and we tried to set it, but it is too cockeyed and won't lay straight. So now I have a grounded peacock! Anyway I think it's Kate that is taking them over to the neighbors. Last friday the neighbors kids got Will back over here, but Kate decided to stay on their old delapidated Ford Truck. It's red, doesn't run. Kate has been roosting on the hood of the truck for the last 4 days. When I try to shoo her over to our property, she takes flight and lands on the neighbor's roof. Prince William is still hanging out in our wood shed and looks like he's pretty depressed that he's alone...keeps looking across the yard toward Kate's direction (she's too far away for visual contact). I occasionally hear him honking, I think he's trying to call her home.

I know mating season is around the corner. Yesterday I heard a couple of cat calls, and Will displayed his feathers for me for the first time. Is Kate just playing hard to get, or is she going to use their truck to nest? Should I just leave her over there (the neighbors love her) and wait until she decides to come back, or should I get a net and bring her back over? There are no other peafowl in the area.

I am working on a covered hooch/roost for them right now, but it is going to be another week or so before it is completed. I really don't want to pen them in, I am a fan of free range. So are my chickens.

 

[zazouse]

My peas are totaly free ranged, they have a barn if thay want to roost up in the losft but they sleep in the trees by the house and are safe their, they do hang out in the loft of the barn it is 40 by 100 up there and i do hope some of them make their nest up their when the time comes, sure save some hunting out in the woods and fields.

 

[Teva]

Thank you Zazouse. Do you have any ideas how to get my peahen back from the neighbor's truck, or maybe even why she continues to hang out there of her own free will? Nobody is feeding her treets or anything. I am wondering what she is eating.....

 

[zazouse]

Has she come home at all?
Guess if it's an old junker truck ya could always tow it home if she is attaced to it

, i just don't know

mine move to different places all threw the day and rest at different places but they aways come home to roost and are never to far from home.

 

[zazouse]

Ya know i raised mine here from babies and they never wondered off but i bought an older pair and they would wonder way off even after just be turned loose, the raised ones were and are always cautious and still are and they have been free ranged sense they turned 4 months old.

 

[Teva]

No, she hasn't come home at all. I can see her when I drive into my driveway, still sitting on the hood of the truck, whenever I come home throughout the day. When she's not on the truck, I step out and look for her, and she's on the neighbor's roof. Prince William comes out from the shed every morning and sits in the garden watching the driveway, hoping she'll come home....poor guy!

 

[zazouse]

Ask your neighbor if you can put a tarp over the truck just tempoary it may discorage her from roosting there and she may come home.
It's very strange she stays away like that. perhaps something has scared her at your place when your male got his wing broke, just guessing

 

[MinxFox]

That is strange...Hmm I find it funny how she doesn't want to stick with Prince William because normally peafowl like to stick together. I barely have experience free ranging peafowl. I only free-ranged my first pair but they were always together until the peacock ran away and that was the end of my free-ranging adventures but I am going to start free-ranging again this time with peachicks hopefully...I miss watching free-ranging peafowl and my Grandma wants to see free-range peafowl so badly she suggested I let all of them out! I told her that wouldn't exactly work...I need some peafowl in a pen that way if some run off I will still have peafowl.

 

[zazouse]

MinxFox,
my peas will go off and leave each other, mine have also divided into 3 groups that sometimes range together, but Master P my oldest leaves everyone and does the peacock call all by himself. so they do not always stay together from what i have observed here.

 

[zazouse]

Teva,
how long have you owned you're peas? perhaps where they came from they were use to resting on automobiles and sense you ran them off of yours, the hen decided to find her own..

I have a dump truck that mine love to sit on and if i move it they will find it and get back on it even if it is out in the field waiting to get filled up with dirt. not running of course.