Anyone know how peacocks and turkeys do together?

[Bird Brain]

I really want to get some peachicks, but I have a BR Tom and Tammy. My father-in-law heard a story about a peacock flying out of his pen and traveling up the road to fly into a turkeys pen to beat him up. The turkey owner apparently warned pea-owner and eventually stopped the peacock himself. My tom is a year old. If I get peachicks and introduce them and let the young-uns grow up around Tom, will they get along?

 

[ShadyGlade]

I tried raising a group of poults & peachicks together last fall. Everything went well until the toms began to feel their hormones in late winter. They ate the crests off of my peafowl and started fighting with the peacocks. I guess you could try but watch for aggression. I've heard all the horror stories about aggressive peacocks but we seem to have gotten lucky ours are all mellow. Even the guinea fowl push them around.

 

[citalk2much]

At the wildlife rehab the "pet" peacock likes to take himself over to the golf course to strut his stuff for the wild turkeys he fans away and the tom fans away we always worry he is going to get in to it with the tom. It has been 4 years and no fights yet

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Our pea's rule the roost around here. We haven't had any problems with them being together.

Steve in NC

 

[Struttn1]

I have never owned peafowl but years ago I came home from work at 3 a.m. in the morning and all of a sudden while unlocking the front door I hear this blood curdling scream coming from my maple tree beside the front porch. I almost tore the front door down trying to get in the house and away from the wild creature I thought was about to eat me.

Now bear in mind I had never heard a peafowl cry so I had no idea what kind of wild animal I had lurking in my tree. The 1st thought that crossed my mind was some kind of big cat...very big cat. I got a flashlingt and my shotgun and went out to see what in the heck screamed at me from my tree. The limbs and leaves were so thick I could not see the trespasser plainly but I could see some movement in the thick foliage. I thought about blasting it but decided to just wait a bit until it started getting daylight so I could try to identify the target better.

I heard the scream a few more times then finally the sky began to lighten up so I went back out with my shotgun. While I am trying to see up into the tree where the scream was coming from I heard something behind me on the roof of the house. I turned and looked and lo and behold their was a peafowl hen walking back and forth on the peak of my roof. I felt pretty sure that peacocks were not meat eaters so I took my shotgun back into the house and by the time I came back out the peacocks had flown into the pen where my turkeys had just came off the roost.

The peafowl hens did get a bit aggressive toward the turkey hens. The peafowl stayed around for a few days then disappeared but I could hear them for a couple of days at another farm across the fields then they left. That is my only experience with peafowl other than seeing them at farms a couple of times and when we go to the zoo in St Louis.

 

[Kev]

Ehh.. Personally I would not keep them confined together. Even if they were friendly with each other, turkeys are big louts with no concept of personal space and peafowl definitely have a personal space concept.

If there's conflict, it usually goes 50-50 who comes out on top. Sometimes it's the turkeys bullying the peafowl or vice versa. Here(free range), the turkeys dominate.. there were only 4 turkeys in the front yard but that was enough to make the peafowl stay mainly in the backyard. When I sold off 3, the peafowl finally started coming into the front yard..

Ran into problems keeping the poults and peachicks together- the poults always eventually started to pick at the peachick's crests as soon as these grew.. and often they would pick on several down to the skin leaving a big red pecked out spot. So, I'll never keep them together past around 2 weeks.

I did try keeping peafowl and turkeys confined in same pen for a while- these birds 'got along' without 'problems'.. but the turkey kept annoying the peafowl by getting into their personal space too much and they had zero regard for the peacock while he was displaying.. the turkeys would just peck and yank at his feathers or try to walk right through his tail. So his tail ended up getting damaged by the turkeys.

I'm guessing in your situation, the turkeys will be dominant ones as they were there 'first' and the peafowl grow up with them. If confined, make sure there is way plenty room and not crowded in pen or the turkeys will likely do some damage to peacock's tail.

 

[deerman]

These were raised together, from the person I got them from. Everything when fine until spring then the nice silverpied peacock was killed by the Tom.

Maybe ok ,say under 8 weeks. But would not try longer. You do raise them the same, feed,heat, teaching to find food and water.

 

[Bird Brain]

ggggrrrrrrrr.......I dont know what to do. I want peachicks, and I could probably get the kind I want in the next week or two, and my turkey chicks are about 2 weeks old,. But I dont want anyone to end up getting hurt or living miserably. Dangit.

 

[Kev]

Sorry. It was a lesson learned hard for me. Seems by deerman's experience, it's really to keep confined birds separately..

I do say peafowl are worth it.. if you can or can make plans in the future to keep them separate, go for it?

 

[chickenzoo]

My peafowl have lived pretty well with my turkeys. The main two that would battle were not raised together. The peafowl would harass the turkey Tom until he got big enough to pick back, and they would spend hours and hours going round and round the round corral, one inside one outside following each other. Eventually they gave it up. I did have a peahen pick a turkey hen's eye and damage it. They all get along now pretty well, but I still keep an eye on them and they do have free range time. My turkey Toms are Bourbans and they have a lot of gals to keep busy and my peafowl also have high roosts. The turkeys are big pigs and do try to eat up all the food, where as peafowl are light eaters and pick and choose mostly. Take the advise of everyone, watch the temperament of your birds and make a decision or weed out trouble makers.