Will my Peafowl fly away?

[Dame Edna]

Hi all,

We have had Peafowl (1 cock, 2 hens) for nearly 3 months. We were told to keep them in a pen for up to 3 months to allow them to bond with the land before releasing them to free range.

The last few weeks we have noticed that they have been communicating with other peafowl down the valley we live in and I wondered if we release them, are they going to fly off and try and find the other peafowl they are communicating with?

Any suggestions and comments will be much appreciated

 

[goldfinches]

My neighbor has a few peas. I don't. But, I can answer from my experience. His come visit me sometimes, but go home at night. We've only had 1 who couldn't figure it out, and when he came over to get her, he said he hadn't kept her cooped up long enough.

 

[fancyfowl4ever]

My Peas are penned all year since the neighbour has some too, he keeps trying to free range them and they all come over here to hang out around my pen and then get eaten by the coyotes

. I told him to keep them penned he is wasting money, but he insists he want to see them run around his farmstead, problem is he sees them for all about 10 minutes after letting them out and then they are across the road and coming my way. At first I always caught them and returned them to him but after 2 weeks of doing that almost daily I just decided to let them be and lo and behold the coyotes did the catching for me.
I would think yours would go find the other birds, so I would keep them penned.

 

[Dame Edna]

Oh! This is not what I was wanting to hear I'd love to hear more from others to help us whether to decide to open the pen door or not….

Cheers

 

[connerhills]

It is difficult to predict what they will do at first . If you have a dog that might chase them and scare them off at first they may not come back. If you are determined to let them out .. Let just the male out and keep the hens penned after a few days put him back in and let one of the hens out then the other one, put the first hen back in again (put the first hen in their pen first and then let the second hen out) do this some until they know where they live ... NOTE ,, read the post above yours. I have birds that just wondered in and have lost birds that got out and never came back. Good luck.. connerhills

 

[sandspoultry]

When we first got our India Blue we kept them in a covered pen for 5 or 6 months and as others have said here we let them out one at a time and that worked well for us. Now the oldest male is the only one that goes out of the pen, he has a route thru the yard and garden and around the house but he doesn't go very far and goes back in the pen to roost with the others at night. The second and third generation very rarely go out of the pen since that is all they have ever known, they will jump up on top the gates and chicken houses to look out but that's about it. Last summer we lost our first one ever, it was a yearling hen and one day was just gone. We looked and looked and never saw hide nor feather of her. Our White and Spaulding peas we keep penned as they are a lot more flighty than the blues, I have no doubt if they got out they would be gone.

 

[MinxFox]

The first pair I got I kept penned for 1 month and they ran away and we were able to catch the peahen but we never got the peacock back. Since these are your first peafowl, you might not want to chance letting your only peafowl free range especially because peahens can be vulnerable when they nest and you might end up losing them to predators while they sit on their nest. I have read several times that if someone has peafowl near you not to let your birds free-range because they will wander over to visit the other peafowl. You never know what could happen...The other peafowl might visit yours instead. I personally would be worried having my birds wander off to visit other birds. I would get too nervous not having them always in the yard.

You could breed your current peafowl and free-range any peachicks you get from them. After my experience with my first peafowl, I will always make sure I have several peafowl penned before I consider free-ranging any. I do let mine out for an hour sometimes and supervise them all while they walk around eating weeds.

 

[furbabymum]

I'm missing a peacock. We had a predator attack and since I have not found a body I'm imagining he flew away. He's yet to return. It's been 2 weeks. So just keep that in mind.

 

[zazouse]

Aww wished you lived closer i would give you another male.

 

[furbabymum]

Aww wished you lived closer i would give you another male.

It was my own dog that has done this. Depressed! I still have 1 male and 2 females though. Hopefully I can hatch out some babies.