How to keep the peacocks and cats off my garden?

[peacocktrouble]

I have a garden which is a bit of a weird shape (long & thin) and I have a lot of grass, weeds and brambles.

My plan is to essentially dig up most of the grass and turn it into beds to grow veg and companion flowers nearby. Maybe some hanging baskets and/or trellis to grow things up the fences.

However. I live on a farm next door to my landlady and she owns a huge amount of peacocks (like, 60+) which are free range and roam all over all the properties. Obviously they can fly so even a gate on the garden won't keep them out! There are also about a dozen cats owned by various people nearby who also wander wherever they like and the garden is often full of poop (bird and cat) 🤢 At the moment it's basically unusable which is such a shame as I have all this outside space just going to waste!

Is there any way I can deter them? I'm thinking I may have to just cover everything in netting to stop it getting pooped on or eaten but if that doesn't work I'm not sure what else to try. I'm on a very low budget so I'm happy to build/make things where possible but I really can't afford any expensive sprinkler systems or ultrasonic deterrents which often seem to be recommended!

been reading around
op you could try the friendly helpful approach - You are not an expert but - apparently it affects all birds & they could catch this nasty disease & die (you have read on the internet) you are really concerned for her & her pets - & by the way would she be at risk of being fined if they are not undercover?? The rules on this are soo confusing (batters eyelashes & looks sympathetically)
Many years of being seriously devious

seriously op she needs to be reported -even free range have to be kept under cover
foot & mouth outbreak springs to mind

Chilli powder and orange peel both work with cats. As does a water pistol. God knows what a peacock would do if you squirted it with a water pistol though!

We've also had some luck using the remains of our Christmas tree too, it mustn't be nice to land one.

I hate cat owners who have outside (or free shitting) cats.

Foot and mouth is an infection of cloven hooved animals and there is patchy evidence that birds act as vectors. That said avian flu is currently a cause of national restrictions for fowl owners to apply to their birds.
If she is elderly and overwhelmed it's a moot point though, she won't be able to make the change and rehoming 60 peacocks isn't easy.
I bet they breed freely and it will 200 next year 😳

peacocks are basically colourful turkeys...

defra advice:

Biosecurity advice
^An Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) has been declared in England (effective from 5pm on the 11 November 2020) with additional housing measures in force from 14 December 2020. This means all bird keepers in England (whether they have pet birds, commercial flocks or just a few birds in a backyard flock) are required by law to take a range of biosecurity precautions, including housing their birds (except in very specific circumstances).

If you keep poultry or other captive birds, you must take action to reduce the risk of disease in your flock by following government advice on biosecurity. Further details of the measures that apply in the AIPZ can be found in the AIPZ declaration.

To assist all bird keepers in complying with the new rules we have updated the biosecurity guidance and published a new Biosecurity self-assessment checklist (ODT, 22.6KB).

I think the obvious solution is to set up cameras so we can all watch the 60 peacocks strutting around your garden. I would subscribe to that.

If you have high fences, or can put trellis all-round, you could try white debris netting overhead. It's the net used on the side of building sites. About £25 for 50 metres @ 2m width. It has holes, so the wind should go through it without ripping. As you'd want it very taught and applied to last, I'd pay a builder to put it up. It might only be feasible in a part of your garden, but could deter the peacocks from landing.

Peacocks are a pain. We had them at school and the noise in the spring was unbelievable. They were also pretty aggressive and would chase and peck. I can’t imagine how noisy a whole flock will be in a month or so.

link to defra avian flu guidance

@RealisticSketch I am aware of this but what I meant was how the foot &mouth started & spread & how many herds & flocks were destroyed - all because of a single farmers bad farming habits ditto the "mad cow disease" when dead animals were recycled & fed to vegetarian cows & sheep.
This lady is disobeying DEFRA advice & could cause the contagion to other birds & that is serious

@peacocktrouble

I'd love a dog but sadly not possible at the moment 😂

It is quite a weird problem, hence I'm asking here as the good old internet has not yielded much helpful info.

That's a shame. I scarcely saw a cat in my garden in the 20 years that I had lakeland terriers in residence and they wouldn't have thought twice about mixing it with a peacock, either.

I'd go for fruit cages or raised beds with a fence, I think. Some friends had to do this because they had a plague of badgers, who dug up all their root veg. They adored garlic and would go for that first.

@TheYearOfSmallThings

I think the obvious solution is to set up cameras so we can all watch the 60 peacocks strutting around your garden. I would subscribe to that.

Me too - monetise this problem and buy the veg. 😆

They don't all come in the garden at once!! No way it's big enough for that lol probably not even big enough for 20 of them 😂

I did see the thing about keeping birds in but tbh there is just nowhere inside for them to go. There's no kind of enclosure for them, they just sleep in the trees and the barn (which is essentially a roof on stilts - no doors to shut them in!). Her property (the one she lives in) is absolutely too small to house them all. I'm sure there have been about 10 babies in the last year alone.

I know she shouldn't be letting them roam free at the moment but I am really loathe to report because if she decides to ask me to leave I have no where else to go. I'd be totally fucked! So I'm very keen to keep the peace.

SIL has the same problem. Garlic salt seemed to work for a month or two but then they started returning - albeit hardly as many! No idea why.

I agree, getting her into trouble is not what you or she need.
I saw on a thread here the other day, someone posted a picture of their compost system, which was many sunken mini compost units dotted around the garden with open tops you dropped stuff into. Below the soil the compartment was open to worms coming and going like they would anyway in the ground and the contents of the mini composts bin dispersed themselves as it were. She said you could literally see the soil around them was enriched.
If you had those and got a little shovel you could scoop and drop all those poops in as you pottered about and they would decompose and nourish your soil. Might help keep them out from under your feet?

Can you really describe peacocks as free range, unless you intend to eat them?

I have free range children

Christmas dinner is sorted...Our school peacocks disappeared one winter and we all assumed that the turkey was not what it seemed that year in the Christmas lunch.

I want a peacock! (Sorry)