What about peafowl?

HI...I am a stranger to this forum, but y'all seem like an OK bunch of folks. May I ask for your opinions?

We (E. Hawaii, The Big Island) have been invaded by the Coqui Frog - a very noisy tiny little frog that calls for mates all night long and being the size of a 25cent piece very difficult to find. Their presense has to be accepted but they really get my sleep when they are around the house...

Someone suggested peafowl as a forager to clean up the critters. Chickens do a good job but our Labrador, Thelma, is a reknowned chicken chaser/killer - instinctive to carry a dead bird around!!!

Our house gardens are not necessary full of tender plants...and they would have 12 acres to wander around.

Do they really destroy plants?
Do the cocks scream all the time? What sets them off?
Are they good at defending themselves against dogs?

Would love some advice... Those frogs drive me NUTS!!

Carol

Welcome!!! So nice to have you here. Peafowl are beautiful. Peafowl are omnivorous and eat ticks, termites, ants, locusts, mice, plant parts, flower petals, seed heads, scorpions and other arthropods, reptiles, and amphibians. (wikipedia) LOL I myself do not have them. Some on here do. If they are anything like chickens they will dig in your plants and landscapes. We fenced ours in because of that. My husband loves the landscapes since it is his main job. I will let someone with better peafowl understanding to step in though. I wish you the best ridding your yard of the frogs. :D
Jeanmarie

Hello... Carol is it?? From the Brug forum?? Welcome!!!

I don't know about peafowl.. other than what I've heard.. they are noisy. A friend's mom tried to talk me into some, saying I'd never have to spray for bugs in the garden.. but I heard her's screaming and NO THANKZ! Hope you don't trade one annoying noise for another one. eeek!

I think Kenboy would be a good one to ask.. They have them don't they? Can't remember.. :)

Good luck and stop in to see us here anytime!!
Beautiful pic there..

Yes, I should have signed my pleading!!!! Carol.

Still collecting some brugs...growing out seeds to get lovely ones...

Will hang here for a while....maybe more information!!!

Carol

I thought it was you! Cool...

I still have a few brugs, but no more seedlings... I grew hundreds and only got 2 worth keeping.. (in my eyes anyway)

Good luck..
Joyce

Funny how that happens. I have kept 3 seedlings: one of Kyles and 2 of mine. I did get Herrenhauser Garten to seed and have 3 I am growing out!!! should be interesting as HG flowers almost never have 'sexual parts' and this was a spontaneous seed pod!!!

Wow.. You are on to something there! Need more HG that can actually bloom!

I had a great double pink.. I'm not sure if it made it through the winter.. Pink Smitty x Mae West

Chickens Chickens Chickens.. Peafowl, peacocks, chicks..

LOL Just to stay on topic LOL

Peafowl are no match for a dog. I have lost $5,000 in the last five years to strays dropped off around our home. Peafowl will eat everything in the garden and more. If a little old frog keeps you up, you do not want to hear a peacock screaming at 2:00 in the morning. You can hear them for miles, if the conditions are right.


And hello to both of you girls. I remember you from the old Brug days. I have backed out of Brugs a bit and expanded in other areas, Gingers, Bananas, EE etc....

Me too - since we started planting the new property I have been so fascinated with different gingers, bromiliads, etc. etc.... In fact, backing out of the Hoya business tho I will still collect, won't have a business for them. Exhausting!!!

Thanks for the information about the peafowl. Now with that knowledge in mind...why do you have them?

Carol

Hey there Kenboy! Hope all is good for you! Good to see you here. That is one beautiful bird you have there! Wow.. what is it?

I got out of brugs too.. obviously, I'm into chickens now.

Yup, that's what I thought! I live about 2 miles from Micke's Grove Zoo. When they had peacocks.. you could hear them!! Although I liked it.. it was a tropical sound.. kinda nice.. (from 2 miles away) LOL I liked to hear the lion roar too.. it's gone now.

Your Peahen(?)...a cross with an albino? What a beautiful bird!!! Does she know she is different?

We are anxious to have chickens...for all the good reasons... But our retriever wouldn't leave one standing!!! She has wiped out many colonies of Kalij Pheasants that roam wild here...most of the local chickens are crosses with Kalij... They ARE wonderful for keeping the bugs down...and their chuckling is reassuring to me. They forage during the day and roose in the trees at night!!! We would make them a 'home' for the eggs!!!

Don't we have FUN!!!

Carol

I have a pair of peacocks and they really don't do all that much damage around the yard. They don't dig like chickens, but do like certain blossoms. My hen makes a nest behind the asparagus plants, but doesn't bother anything but the soybean plants (not the beans, just the leaves) in the vegeatable garden. The male calls, but with only one, it's not all that loud and it's really only bad for a few weeks a year. I've never noticed them eating frogs, but they are hell on snakes! Just the beauty of they gentle birds is worth any trouble they make. My lab doesn't bother them, but he has been raised around birds, bunnies and fawns. He won't touch anything unless it's cooked and has gravy.

I love that...cooked with gravy!!!!

My aunt had peacocks; as teenagers we hated them. They roosted in the trees over the driveway and announced our after curfew nightly homecomings with an earsplitting, parent-awakening "HELP, HELP, HELP!" (The dogs, which were hunters, never bothered them.)

Hi there ALOHA!!! So you have a lab thats tough on birds, huh, Theres an easy solution to that. Just take him to the waters edge and point him to the lower 48 and tell him to have a nice swim.LOL Haystack

OK Maybe just find him a nice home and get chickens, and more chickens. I love dogs really but if they can't behave, they gotta go. No rudeness around here.

HI Ferndale... Wish I could, but she is our baby. She's 8 now, so it won't be too long before she won't beable to run!!!

Unfortunately, the lab breed is made for bird hunting. (and squirel, and rabbit...and ...) hehehe

We had her sister before she was killed by a car (Thelma and Louise) and Louise would go into the bush every time we had guests and flush out a pheasant (the Kalij which were brought here years ago to hunt) and proudly present the dead bird to the guest. Not a tragedy because the Kalij are death on gardens....

Now that is team work. It must have been hard when you lost the sister. We are thinking of getting another dog. The kids want a little one. A female. Thats what their requesting anyway. LOL

Yeah...still not over it.... little ones are fun too!!

Anyone need a good laugh? I bet we DO!!!

The following was the TOP STORY on the local HONOLULU top TV/NEWS:


==============================
Peacock Beaten To Death, Woman Blames Bird
A peacock was viciously beaten to death this weekend in Makaha and the accused
animal killer says the birds constant squawking drove her to do it.

=========================================

I have not stopped laughing!!!!!

Must have been a slow day in the New World

Carol

I'm horrible.. I'm dying laughing too!!!!!!!

LOLOL!! thank you, Carol!! With just about any other creature that would be an inadequate defense, but...sorry...broke my funny bone with that one.........

So, has all this discussion helped with your decision to acquire peafowl?

Definitely Yes. And the decision is definitely a NO. Will wait until Thelma (dog) may be too old to chase them, and I will get chickens to eat the $#%^&!! Coqui Frogs!

Carol

The Peacock Story

Hope there is a statue of limitations on this….. it was an accidental death not a homicide.

A zillion years ago my mom and her friend were left alone as I am thinking about 9 or 10 yr olds. (In those days, approx 1953, that was safe…generally), while the parents went out to dinner. They were at the friend’s home which butted up to the Arboretum in Arcadia, Ca.

The Arboretum had peacocks, lots of them. They would fly over the fence into the yard and poop on the patio as well as scream their brains out. That night (I am guessing while still light) one of them came on over and was leaving a gift on the patio and the other kid, who’d had enough of poop detail, ran out and grabbed it around the neck and yelled at it to never come back. Which promptly scared it to death.

Now we have two kids and a dead peacock that they knew belonged to the Arboretum and of course they were doomed to the electric chair if caught with said dead bird.

The solution? Pluck all the feathers, stuff them down the garbage disposal, remove bird innards, burry them in the yard, boil the bird and eat all the evidence.

They were sick for a week and the garbage disposal was never the same.

Someday I’ll tell you about the parakeet stew.


Ginger

Too funny. I sent it in to the TV News Station....the announcers have a great sense of humor!!!

Oh gosh.. that makes me a zillion and five years old!

If my Mom ever sees this I am in BIG trouble....LOL...
I believe the offending parties (excepting the peacock) are all still residing on earth.


Ginger