Regular chicken eggs are the preferred egg variety for eating and are also used to measure other eggs against. Peacocks are beautiful birds that grace many a yard, and for breeding purposes, you may wonder, what is the peacock eggs’ size?
It is a common question, yet incorrect. Peacocks are the male peafowl, and it is the peahen who loves to lay eggs. While many use the eggs for breeding, many use the eggs for eating.
So, in our guide, you can learn more about the size of a peahen egg. By the end, you’ll know more about peahen eggs and how they compare to other eggs. This will comprise nutrition, and can you eat peafowl eggs as you would a chicken egg?
Do Peacocks Lay Eggs?
No, peacocks can’t lay eggs as they are males. The peahen, who is their female counterpart, lays eggs. Peafowl is the collective term for peacocks and peahens. (Read Are Eggshells Good For Succulents)
Are all Peacock Eggs Fertilized?
Not all peacock eggs are fertilized. Even if they haven’t mated with a peacock, the peahens will lay eggs once they reach adulthood. Breeders interested in selling the peahens’ eggs gather these unfertilized eggs, primarily used for eating.
The incubation period for a peahen’s egg is 28 to 30 days. In a nest created in captivity, the eggs can be laid, and the peahen sits them in a largely confined coop.
A peahen can only incubate ten eggs incubating at once. However, professional breeders frequently use the surplus peahen egg to hatch chicks via an incubator as they would with chickens.
What Do Peacock Eggs Look Like?
Identifying a peacock’s egg is one thing to know with a large flock of mixed birds. They are easy to identify compared to duck eggs or those from chickens and goose eggs, yet if you struggle, if you don’t have birds larger peacocks, the peafowl egg would be the largest egg.
Peacock Egg Color
The egg is not the standard shade we expect from a hen’s or a duck’s egg. They are typically off-white or milky white, yet you can find colors such as pale yellow, reddish-brown, yellowish-brown, or pale pink. tinted and are primarily buff white. It can also be a pale or light brown color. (Read Can Pigs Eat Watermelon Rinds)
Benefits of Peacock Egg
A peafowl egg has equivalent nutritional value to a chicken egg, yet more nourishment per volume as it is larger.
The blue peafowl eggs have a higher yolk fat content and egg yolk to egg white ratio when compared to a large chicken egg.
Some of its health advantages include:
- Protein rich in each of the essential amino acids.
- The egg is remarkably high in cholesterol, saturated and unsaturated fats, and other forms of fat.
- High levels of B12 and other vital B group vitamins, such as B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B9.
- The egg is a good source of zinc and vitamin D, calcium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium, potassium, and sodium.
- Besides Choline, there are trace amounts of selenium, iodine, copper, manganese, and molybdenum.
In conclusion, peacock eggs are as healthy, if not healthier, than other birds’ eggs.
How Often Do Peafowl Lay Eggs?
Peafowl start laying eggs at 2 years old, unlike 6 months for chickens. You don’t need a male peacock to have peafowl eggs for eating. You’ll need a male peacock to hatch peafowl eggs for more birds.
Peahens lay eggs daily for 6-8 days. After that, the peahen makes a nest and sits on the eggs to incubate. If you want more eggs, you can remove them from their position, and the peafowl will continue laying for about a month.
Are Peafowl Eggs Bigger Than Chicken Eggs?
The peacock egg size is roughly 3 inches long and 2 inches wide. When compared to a chicken’s egg, which is 2.5 inches long and 2 inches wide, the egg can be better recognized.
The size is obviously considerably bigger. The peafowl’s eggs are about the same size as turkey eggs. The chicken egg is the benchmark for comparing egg sizes because nearly everyone has seen one.
However, even a chicken egg size varies in size and is affected by breed, health, and age of the chickens, which affect the quality of chicken eggs.
It’s hard to determine the exact average egg size for peacock and chicken. However, egg sizes vary according to the health, age, and bread of the bird, among other factors.
Compared to chicken eggs, the size of peacock eggs is more significant and is roughly 50% larger than chicken eggs. You can clearly see the size difference when comparing the peacock eggs to chicken eggs on a size-to-size basis. (Read Can Chickens Eat Black Olives)
How Much Do Peafowl Eggs Weigh?
There is no best way to understand the difference between the chicken egg and peacock egg than taking the weight of the two eggs. In terms of weight, an average peacock egg weighs more than an average chicken egg.
For instance, an average chicken egg weighs about 50 grams, while an average peacock egg weighs about 110 grams which are almost two times more than the average weight of a chicken egg.
To help you better understand how much peafowl eggs weigh, the weight of one egg is two times or three times the age of a chicken egg. Peafowl eggs have an average weight of 3.2 and 3.5 ounces, whereas large hen eggs weigh between 56.7 and 63.38 grams.
According to calculations, two to three large chicken eggs would equal one of the larger eggs of one peafowl egg in a frying pan.
Can You Eat Peafowl Eggs?
You may not be aware of this, but all bird eggs are edible, but it takes some work to prepare eggs. You can eat peafowl eggs; they are not an exception. Aside from size, there are no other apparent differences between a chicken egg and a peafowl egg.
In order to properly evaluate the flavors of the eggs laid by both peafowl and chicken, you must feed them on diets of quality feed that are abundant in natural proteins.
How Long Does it Take For Peacock Eggs to Hatch?
If you want to know how long does it take for peacock eggs to hatch, the peafowl incubation period for an average peacock egg is 28-30 days. Peafowl is better at incubating eggs than humans can when using artificial methods.
Remember, since peafowls can lay eggs without a male, you must be careful during the breeding season to incubate fertilized eggs. Incubate the eggs to breed them professionally. Peahens are patient and will keep eggs warm until they hatch in the breeding season.
However, you need to note that younger peacocks find it challenging to settle in confinement. In such an instance, you can gather their eggs and have them incubated for the peacock eggs to hatch similarly to the chicken. (Read Can Pigs Eat Corn)
Suppose you choose to hatch or incubate the peacock eggs yourself; ensuring that the peafowl eggs are fertilized is vital. Many individuals overlook this, though, as it sounds obvious.
A common egg turner holds fifteen chicken eggs. They must first determine whether the peacock eggs will fit inside. And even if they do fit, they are still unsure about whether to place the peacock eggs largely vertically, as they do with chicken eggs.
