If you’re a first-time peacock owner or you’re having trouble keeping your birds grounded, then this article is for you!
Today, we’re sharing a simple guide on how to keep peacocks from flying away.
How to Keep Peacocks from Flying Away
To prevent your peacocks from flying away, you should:
- Give them a safe and comfortable living area, ideally a large pen.
- Provide them with proper training for staying home. Young peacocks (yearlings) are easier to train, but training older ones is possible with patience.
- Keep peacock predators away from your birds.
Reasons that Could Cause Peacocks to Fly Away
Before we get to explaining all the methods you can apply to stop your peacocks from flying away, you should first understand the reasons that may drive your majestic birds to fly away from your care.
The list below includes a few of the most common reasons why peacocks tend to fly away and what you can do to avoid these scenarios.
1. Your Peacocks are Feeling Lost
Peacocks can feel lost when you change their environment, for example, by bringing them to a new home. This is especially true in the case of new fowls.
This sensation of “loss” and “misplacement” causes a type of stress that triggers their need to go back to the place they’ve come from, although they probably don’t even know where that place is.
Generally speaking, this attitude changes when your peacocks have had enough time to get used to their new environment. But as long as your peacocks are still feeling lost, the urge to fly away may persist.
As such, you should always make sure that new peacocks stay in the pen for at least 2 months after you first bring them home.
Good Idea: Don’t forget to spend plenty of time with them to help them trust you and get quickly accustomed to their new home.
2. Your Pen Is Overcrowded
Your peacocks may also fly away from your pen if it’s overcrowded in hopes of finding a better home.
You should keep in mind that peacocks require a bit of personal space, which brings them a certain comfort that they highly prioritize.
To avoid such a situation, you should ensure that your peacock’s pen isn’t overpopulated with peafowl or other birds and poultry such as chickens.
If you’re building your own pen, keep in mind that it needs to be quite spacious as peacocks enjoy jumping around and fanning out their tails without restrictions.
3. There are Predators Nearby
Peacocks do have a temper, but they generally prefer to have plenty of comfort in their everyday lives.
If they sense or notice the presence of predators nearby or if they feel unsafe where they live, chances are they’ll fly away to attempt to escape their new “unsafe” home.
4 Methods to Keep Peacocks from Flying Away
Whether you’re a first-time owner of peacocks or you’re having problems managing your birds, we’ve put together a guide with 4 ways to help you prevent them from flying away.
1. Provide a Large Pen
The first thing you should do to avoid driving your peacocks away is providing them with a large enough pen.
Remember, these birds need plenty of room to jump around and comfortably stretch.
If you give them adequate space, your peacocks won’t feel restricted and itch to take flight whenever you open the pen’s doors.
Peacocks can reach 8 feet of growth or even longer, so they keep in mind that they need the freedom to hop and fan out their tails without feeling too cramped.
If you’re having multiple peacocks live together, it’s best to provide each one with a separate pen since they’re quite territorial birds.
You can purchase a ready-made pen or make your own from scratch. The choice is up to you.
If you prefer the latter option, make sure you use sturdy mesh when building the pen’s walls and roof. Also, include strong fencing to keep out predators.
Right Thing To Do: The location of the roosts should be as high from the ground as possible because peacocks like to sit in elevated points where they can have an uninterrupted view of their surroundings.
2. Offer Proper Training
You may not know this, but peacocks are trainable.
In fact, training your birds to stay home is one of the most effective ways of keeping your peacocks from flying away.
To achieve the best and fastest results, train your peacocks young. So, if you’re planning on adopting a new peacock, go for a young adult that’s about 1 year old.
It’s a lot easier to train such birds, making them a more favorable choice for folks looking to raise their peacocks free-range and want to ensure they won’t bail out on them as soon as they get a chance.
When training your peacocks, you’ll need to be consistent for multiple weeks. This gives them enough time to gradually catch on and learn the intended behavior.
To train young peacocks, a lot of people resort to clipping their wings before letting them out of their pens.
This technique prevents the birds from flying and they’ll eventually think they can’t do it too high or too long, so they’ll stop trying altogether.
3. Give them Extra Care
Not everyone can adopt young peacocks and if you’re one of those, don’t worry!
It’s still possible to train your older peacocks to stay home — you’ll just need some additional time and effort (compared to a yearling) to get your message across.
If you’re adopting a grown peacock, we recommend you also bring home a pre-trained peacock or one that has been living in a closed pen.
Dedicate extra love and care to your new birds to help them feel comfortable and safe in their new setting.
This way, you peacocks will have no reason to leave you and, soon enough, you won’t have to worry about them flying away once you let them out of the pen.
Additionally: Be sure to give your peacocks enough food and water with the occasional treat to keep them grounded.
4. Drive Predators Away
Last but not least, if there are any predators present in the area, you should drive them away as peacocks will try to leave if they feel unsafe.
Examples of predators that peacocks fear include snakes, foxes, and even household dogs.
Not only do keeping predators away help prevent your peacocks from flying away, but they’ll also stay alive!
If you own dogs, it’s best to set up boundaries to teach both your peacocks and dogs where they can and can’t go. On the other hand, fences will block out predators.
Taking such measures to protect your peacocks from predators and even playful puppies is necessary to help them calm down and feel safe on your property.
Try to put up fences around your pens and train your dogs to not chase after your peacocks if you want them to coexist and keep the peacocks from flying away.
Wrap Up
There you have it, a complete guide on how to keep peacocks from flying away.
Succeeding in this mission can be as simple as preparing a safe and spacious home for your birds, as well as showering your birds with lots of love and care.
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