24



/. Harman—The Peacock as a Pet



yellow, orange, and red. These colours are then reflected back to

our eyes.


As so frequently happens when a bird is taken in hand by man, a

number of freak forms of the Peafowl have been bred. There is, for

instance, a white variety, a pied form, and one sometimes miscalled

the “ Japan ” variety. This latter should be “ Japanned ”, in reference

to the black shoulders. It is also called the Black-winged form. None

of these is so handsome as the original. The Burmese Peafowl is a

distinct race.


Now as to keeping a Peacock as a pet. If you have a vegetable

garden and pride yourself on keeping the kitchen well supplied, then

you will have to take Mr. Punch’s famous advice for those about to

be married ! But in a flower garden a Peacock will not do much damage,

though the writer came across an odd hen who made a regular habit of

eating nasturtium seeds.


The little misdeeds of Peafowl are easily compensated for by their

many excellent qualities. They are very strongly attached to their

homes, and are not given to wandering. They are intelligent birds

with intriguing habits.


With regard to breeding, and if the hen lays and sits on five or six

eggs, you must not expect to raise more than two or three young birds.

The eggs can be placed under a foster parent.


The Peafowl is almost omnivorous in its dietery and can be given

all sorts of table scraps, supplemented with a certain amount of chicken

food. They must have greenstuff. Scraps such as cheese rinds and

breadcrusts should be cut up small before being fed to the birds. Your

chicks, when you have any, will need a more classy diet. The mother

will find insect fare for them, and as they grow older they will grub for

themselves. But they should be given a hard-boiled egg chopped up

into small pieces, ant’s eggs, and chick-meal, sold for rearing ordinary

chickens on. Any which “go off colour ” might be revived by a diet

of the yolk of egg chopped up with biscuit meal.


Peacocks are smart birds when it comes to filling their stomachs.

If you have them in a large area of ground—and you can only keep these

birds satisfactorily under conditions of almost complete liberty—they will

find most of their food for themselves. Give them a few scraps as titbits



