Aggressive Peacock - Help!

[Larien]

Hello, all! I’ve been registered here for a while but I’m only now having an issue with my poultry, lol.. specifically, my demon peacock from hell: Milo

He is 2 years old next month, as is his “wife,” they are unrelated but I bought them together as week old chicks and raised them myself. Milo has never been friendly, my female tolerates some petting and is VERY nosy but he has always been shyer and flighty.

But over the last 2-3 months, he has become a monster. Every search on aggression in peacocks I’ve made tells me they’re harmless and Non aggressive, and it makes me laugh... because today, no joke, he almost got me killed by one of my horses.

It started as following me at my heels constantly and graduated into sometimes pecking at my legs, and then lunging at them and kicking with his spurs, and now today he attacked my head and neck three times. My peafowl have been in my horse barn for a few months because their enclosure was destroyed in a storm, and it hasn’t stopped raining long enough to have their new one built. I recently had baby goats born and now a kill pen rescue horse is being quarantined in the barn, so I’m in there quite often. Today was his worst attack by far: as I cleaned her stall I had to literally fend him off the entire time, and when I returned the mare to the stall, he followed me in, attacked my head, sent the poor horse into a panicked frenzy, and she threw me into the wall. I’m bloodied from his attack.

The female isn’t nesting nor could I find any signs of one. I don’t understand why he’s become so violent, but I’m at my wit’s end. I absolutely will not consider rehoming or culling him, but what can I do about his behavior? Is he stressed, I don’t want him to be unhappy, and I don’t want to be hurt. I arm myself now with a broom, but he will just fly up to kick my head now, it doesn’t even deter him.

Apologies on the lengthy post, I’m just trying to figure out why he’s aggressive and if I can stop it. Thank you all for your time and I have all kinds of poultry that I adore on my farm so I look forward to posting more with y’all!

 

[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

Oh wow I'm sorry you have a bad bird! We have around 30 or 40 peacocks here on our farm, they are only tame to the point of coming when we throw grain once a day, they just roam the fields the rest of the day. My grandparents started them 40 years ago and not one out of the hundreds we have had have ever attacked a human. However, every spring come mating time they viscously attack each other and attack our turkeys. So if yours is just attacking because it's mating season then my advice is to stay away from him and his wife he may be protecting, as much as you can, and hopefully once this time is over, in a few weeks he will be back to normal.
However if that's not the reason and he is being like a rooster then maybe you need to give him a few hard whacks with that broom to let him know whose boss, otherwise he is just going to think he can continue getting away with it!
Actually whatever his reason is, I would whack him with that broom as often as necessary to put him in his place.

 

[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

Also for us, the spring mating only lasts oh maybe a month and a half, so if he's been doing this for longer than I think he's trying to show dominance.
Then after the hens nest and lay their eggs, the males are still rotten and fight with each other alot, it's in their nature, but the worst is definitely before the hen nests. Also they are super good at hiding their nests, she could have one hidden that you don't know about. Some of ours will lay in the rafters of our barn!

 

[KsKingBee]

This is why it is not a good idea to imprint on a peacock, peahens are much better and are not as aggressive when imprinted. He is defending his territory, that is it. He just wants to keep the competition away from his breeding ground and since he identifies with you and feels that he is your peer you must remain away from it. If you were another peacock he would try to run you off too. I would throw him out into the elements, he will not leave his hen and most probably won't leave your property either as that is where home and food is. Once he is turned loose he will establish another territory, hopefully not where you need to be like in the barn.