How to Raise Peacocks and Peahens
86Beautiful Peacocks
The Majestic and Beautiful Peacock
One of my most vivid memories of early childhood trips to the neighborhood zoo is their collection of peacocks wandering the grounds right outside the zoo entrance. My appreciation for the awe-inspiring, mind-blowing beauty of the tropical peacock has not waned since those early days. From its sparkling blue head to its large, fanned out tail, the peacock vies with the lion for the true title of King of the Animals.
Hobbyists who are raising backyard poultry often decide to start raising peacocks, not for any sort of practical reason, but simply to add a flash of color and beauty to their chicken, gamebird or waterfowl flock. The peacock is one of a kind, and having one or two of them running around your farm or backyard will truly set you apart and make your neighbors peacock-green with envy!
Of course, the peafowl species itself is not as majestic as the peacock. The peahen, poor thing, is quite drab and boring. Nature has evolved her to be this boring to help her stay hidden while raising baby peafowl, or peachicks. One might argue that she has the better end of the deal. Adding a pair of peafowl, one male and one female, or several birds of mixed gender can also increase your chances of having a reproducing, breeding peafowl pair to help liven up your landscape.
How to Start Your Own Peafowl Flock
The best way to start raising peafowl is to obtain several peachicks or young peafowl. This allows you to avoid the hassle and headache of incubating fertile peafowl eggs, which is something that only more advanced poultry hobbyists typically attempt.
Your peafowl can be fed a combination of grain (e.g. scratch, available at your local farm supply store or feed store) and gamebird feed. They will also enjoy scrounging around your yard, searching for wild seeds and grass as well as bugs, lizards and other wild critters. In the wild, peafowl survive solely on what they can find while rummaging through a plane or forest. Even domesticated peafowl will do this. For this reason, it is best to let your peafowl roam within an enclosed pasture that is fenced to protect them from all but the most determined predators (peafowl are quite large and adult peafowl are rarely the victims of airborne predators such as owls or hawks, though it's not completely unheard of).
If you want to breed peafowl, you need one male peacock (three years old or older, the older the better!) and three or four peahens (preferably two years old or older). The peahen will sit on her fertile eggs, which typically include a clutch of eight eggs. Once hatched, she will care for them. Some people choose to remove the fertile eggs and incubate them themselves. However, peafowl that are allowed to roam have a tendency to hide their nests and it may be difficult for you to collect any peafowl eggs unless you are raising peacocks and peahens within a coop or small chicken run.
Watch Peacocks in the Wild
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this was a very helpful website thanku
i have a 6 acre little farm with chickens, a small inside dog, and a cat. i wanted to add a peacock and a peafowl they are babies. im not going to build anymore pens these peas would stay in the yard and roost in trees and i would feed them there nutrients i hope they dont wander do you think they will?
I love peafowl.I had to give mine up.I tried to pass them off as chickens buy cutting their majestic feathers,but they lived a lot longer than chickens.Their screams made neighbors complain,especially because I live in LA,California.
Me and my dad are starting a business breeding peacocks. and i was wondering how big of a pen do i need for 8 peahens and 2 peacocks.
i have 21 total peacocks &peafowls plus two peachicks my dad had them for over ten years feed them grapes grains &grains oats rasins and they keep having more babys just dont like them having them during winter.have to build a bigger pen.have to care for them as my dad passed.
Peacocks are easy to raies I started out with 1 pair 25 years ago. the first year we raise 4 peachicks and there numbers kept going up over the years. we live on a livestock farm where they rome free. i have never fed them or watered them. they are on there own and do very well
we have one peacock and three peahens, In winter we keep them in the barn with 20 sq.ft. of moving space. In summer they roam our property, stay home cus they are pets!! I do keep a radio going day and nite in the barn and by the my door (outside)to keep them company, and they love soft sounds. We feed them catfood as a treat each day and they come running for it!!Our male lets us touch him and he picks at my clothing for his treats!!By the way, we live in Newfoundland, Canada
I have 2 blue males one mature one a year away.two white males and 1 white female, as well as two blue females they seem to get along quite well.Last year they laid approx 8 eggs each and set for approx 2 weeks then just left the eggs.I don't know why this happened I have to think maybe they didn't have enough privacy.
I have a India Blue peafowl I bought last June as a tiny baby. I say "peafowl" because I have NO idea if it's a boy or a girl. It doesnt have the long gorgeous feathers of a male, but how long does it take a peacock to develop those? This bird does fan its tail out, sometimes in greeting, sometimes in protecting it's territory... it should be close to a year old by now.... can anyone tell me if I have a girl or a boy? LOL
It takes three years before a full male train develops. If it is pretty drab in color it is probably a girl. More vibrant, a male. It does sound like displaying and that is more likely to be a male because it is mating season. Also to the person whose peahens left the eggs, sometimes that happens. Next time stick them under a broody chicken. We have 8 newly hatched peachicks that were sat on for us by two chickens. We have hatched them like this numerous times.
I've got a peacopck and a peahen in my backyard. The peahen's eggs are soft... is she too old?
To make a long story short, an Indian Blue (I named him Jimmy) showed up in our yard about a year ago. For some reason or another, he has decided to stay, though he is decidedly lonely. We recently discovered a place that will sell us peachicks at an affordable price; we hope to raise them as we have our chickens, that they will come to us (to the shelter we provide for them) when danger approaches. Is this reasonable?
We adopted a peacock and peahen a month ago. We let them out to roam on our average today and my sheltie ran after them and scared them off into trees. Will they come back to our property or have we just lost them. They are about six years old.
I have some peacocks that I have been raising for a few years. They just roam free in my yard and I feed them. This year we had 4 babies. During the first night of their lives something attacked them. The next morning I had one dead baby and 2 were missing. One was left. This baby is now over a month old and doesn't seem to be growing at all.
Tonight I watched the mom go up in the tree and the little baby did not. Can something traumatic happen where the baby will not grow? I hope I am being overly worried and it will be okay, but usually the mom won't go up into the tree unless the babies go with her.
What could have happened and is this baby going to eventually grow?
Thanks for the input
I am moving to a new house situated on almost an acre of land....high desert land in Nevada. A neighbor of mine has a peacock, and I love the bird, don't even mind the early morning wake up call. I wanted to try having a peacock and hen on the new property but did not know if the heat of a Nevada summer will affect the birds. I would have a coop for them, unfenced big yard with trees. What do you think? Can they stand the heat?
I have a male and two hens (indian blue) The hens started
laying eggs and one of them is even sitting on seven eggs.
But I never saw them breeding. How do they breed?
Ilearned a lot from this website now its time fore you to read it
this was a very helpful website thanku
which feed in very useful for two month peacock.b\c i have 2 monthe peacock babies.
muhammad.iqbal@aku.edu
How do you take care of them in the winter? I live in northern Ohio and it can get cold. I don't know if I should find her a home before winter as she roams free here now. Kind of a neighborhood pet.
I had a few peafowl wander onto our property, to be exact there were three males, and two females, we managed to capture the two females, and one male. The two females wandered out into the woods and had babies, I was wanting to know how often do peacocks come into season, and would it be safe to place the males and the females into the same pens?
I have heard that peacocks can have their "voice box" removed as to keep them quite in a residential area. Has anyone heard of this?
I recently had a pair of beautiful peacock,they are one year old ,the problem is that they are not eating anything except egg yolk that too in the morning rest of the day they don't eat the wheat grains,special peacock feed nor bread crumbs or any greenery as we have a big place with lots of vegetables growing but they r just not interested in any thing the vet said maybe they r missing their old place and they will take some time to settle but how long I am getting worried plz help
do peahens only lay eggs when they are fertill becus i was thinken obout breeding peafowl & just for the recerd i am 10 years old born in aogist 2001 yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i want to get baby peacocks is that a good thing to do ?
jayduve Hub Author 2 years ago
Thanks for reading this article about raising peacocks! Let me know if you have any poultry questions. :)