Fence jumper

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showmestatebill

showmestatebill

In the Brooder
Jun 25, 2015
30
10
39
South Mo,
My 2 year old peacock discovered fence jumping. I don't mind the jumping/flying over the fence because he goes back in on his own. However, he has also discovered their is another peacock hiding behind the chrome bumper of my truck. He did his Ninja kick at the other bird and lost. He limped the rest of the day. The next day he challenged the other bird again with the same result. He had a severe limp this time. Vet said he broke his right spur from the leg bone. All he could do was give him pain meds which I put in treats. He is much better now and hasn't jumped fence in a couple of days.
 
Peafowl are very curious and they can be very attracted to shiny objects because they can see their reflection in it. Some people like putting mirrors in their peafowl pen as a 'toy' for the peafowl. It isn't exactly a good toy because there has been at least one instance of a peacock breaking a mirror and cutting himself on the shards. Also sometimes they get so into pecking at that other bird that they can make themselves bleed from the constant pecking or kicking at the object. I read a story about a round mirror-like sculpture in a garden that was causing one peacock to harm himself because he kept hitting his reflection. I think some people use mirrors for little parrots, but unlike parrots who may like staring at the bird in the mirror peafowl will try to attack the bird in the mirror.

Peafowl are also known to jump onto vehicles.

Hopefully he has learned his lesson, but I would keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't try fighting the imaginary twin peacock again.
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Thx for your reply. Where we lived before we had a large Blue Bird population [our State Bird]. Every spring I had to tie shopping bags over the side rear view mirrors to keep them from beating themselves bloody. I hadn't thought of chrome surfaces doing the same thing.
 
I have had to move my truck before because it was parked near the bluebird nest box and they would come out and attack my car mirrors.
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I was curious about what parrots do when they have a mirror or reflective surface in their cage so I found this:
http://www.birdchannel.com/media/bi...r-issues/parrot-reflection-obsession.aspx.pdf

After reading that article it seems parrots don't really get aggressive to their reflection, but will instead fall in love with their reflection and sometimes will even become aggressive to people who try to get near the mirror.

So I guess not all birds see mirrors as bad, but on the other hand if a parrot gets too attached to a mirror that can be just as bad.

I know my peafowl will peck at shiny jewelry. I have had them try to pull out my earrings before.
 
In a way I guess peafowl and parrots are similar as they do not have the domestication history of what I would consider domesticated animals. Thanks for the mirror link. We have had parrots for decades. We have had our African Grey Timneh since before she was weaned. She is 19 now. They all are very social. The smaller parrots [Budges to Conures] seem to have a need for mirrors more than the larger parrots.
 

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