Safety is a MUST when transporting peafowl! Specific precautions need to be made when transporting birds to make sure that they do not escape, to make sure that they do not overheat, and to make sure they do not hurt themselves in their transport box.
| Transporting birds to another pen: | Holding, boxing, or herding. | You can catch the bird and hold it while you walk it over to another pen. If you are worried about it wiggling out of your hands, catch it inside the pen and have a transport box ready inside the pen to put the bird inside. If your bird is tame enough and the nearby pen is not too far, you can herd the bird over to the nearby pen and walk it inside. This should only be done if you can correctly read the peafowl's body language. |
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| Transporting to the buyer: | Boxing | Since you personally will be transporting the bird to the new owner, you can take one of your nicer transport boxes since you can be there to take back your own transport container. You can keep the boxed up bird in the bed of your truck or in the back of an SUV. Even the back seat of a car if you have room. |
| Transporting to an Animal Auction: | Boxing | This is about the same as transporting to a buyer, but you want to make sure that once at the auction, the bird is placed in a shaded area so that it does not overheat if it is hot outside. Provide it with water. |
| Buyer comes to buy bird and take it home: | Boxing with your own box or tell them to bring one. | You might want to consruct a sturdy cardboard box for the buyer to transport the bird in. That way they will not have to come back again to drop off your box. OR you can tell the buyer before hand to bring their own transport box, preferably a dog box. |
A good peafowl box is one that is NOT a cage! An all metal cage to transport peafowl in can be a disaster! They will jump around in the cage and be very stressed out not to mention mess up their pretty feathers. Cardboard boxes and dog boxes are the best ways to transport peafowl. These boxes may have some openings to see through and breathe through, but 80% or more of the box is not see through. This will help keep the bird calm and they will be far less likely to jump around.
The box needs air holes so if you are making your own box out of cardboard you should put air holes in it and areas where the peafowl can look out.
Some people will cut off all of those pretty train feathers so that they can fit a peacock into a box. I believe in trying to preserve the feathers of the bird as best as I can. Long dog boxes that raccoon hunters use for their dogs work very well. We have a long dog box but it isn't even long enough to fit a full peacock in. Luckily the door to the dog box is a simple door with three bars going across it. All you have to do is pull the end of the train through one of the slots between the bars and there you have it! The train will not be squished and you or the buyer will be very pleased.
Of course you can also make your own box with a slot in it for the peacock's train to fit through. You could even modify a dog box so that it too could be used for a fully trained peacock.
First of all, I haven't gotten into shipping peafowl nor have I ever had a bird shipped to me, but from what I have read you should provide some form of water for the birds like a wet sponge or something. Some people catch up the bird they are getting ready to ship and put it in a pen and give it lots of food and water so that it will be nice and full before the trip. I am no expert on shipping peafowl, so I would do extra research if you are shipping a peafowl to someone. You want to keep in mind that sometimes there are delays and the bird could be in the box longer than it was supposed to be, which is a good reason to provide it with food. You also want to keep in mind the weather. Most people do not ship birds durring the summer and will ship birds in the fall. I think that is a good idea to keep in mind. Oh and put "Fragile Live Animal" on the box.
Hopefully this article has helped. I haven't transported peafowl a whole lot, but I primarily use dog boxes when I go to buy new birds, etc. Dog boxes are just right for transporting peafowl. I first used a dog box when I got my first pair of peafowl. We were so amazed at how calm they were in the dog box. They just lay there in the box looking very relaxed. I have even had peahens use a dog box to nest in, so you know they must feel comfortable in a dog box!
