Best Situation to PREVENT Aggression?

[MA Mama]

I hatched 4 India Blue peachicks with the intent of having a male around for beauty. What sort of flock numbers/genders would HELP (besides keeping my distance versus bonding withe them) keep the male(s) from being aggressive? For instance, would it help if I kept NO hens? Would it help if I kept 2 hens? 1 hen? 2 roos? What type of scenario do you think would keep him from seeing me as competition, if any?

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Keeping just males together will not work. I had 3 peacocks that all was raised together,,I was considering keeping two of them and had another nice ib/bs male that was hatched the same year. All three of these males was in the same pen when growing up. Last spring they were two years old and they was penned by themselves. As breeding season approached they started chasing each other around. It was easy to tell that the IB male was ruling the pen and would chase the Opal b/s and ib/bs until they were panting and sticking their heads thru the fence to keep from getting pecked.

I solved the problem by moving all of them at night into another pen they had not been in before with about 15 1 yr old males. No fighting anymore.

I've got breeding pens with 2 and 3 and up to 6 hens with only one peacock to breed them. In most all pens except 2-3,the peacocks will single out a peahen and she will get picked on for awhile. So hen numbers doesn't effect agressiveness.

If you don't bond with them when young when they get older they will be used to your presence when in their pen,,feeding and watering them-- but should not show any agression towards you.They will avoid you rather than try to show dominance.

 

[MA Mama]

Thank you!

 

[MA Mama]

Will the same concept work for my children - just avoiding them? Or will they see the small size as a threat no matter what?

 

[DylansMom]

Will the same concept work for my children - just avoiding them? Or will they see the small size as a threat no matter what?

 

[MA Mama]

Ah yes, snicker snicker.

 

[MinxFox]

Some peacocks just have it in them to pick on the others. I have 7 peafowl in a pen and 3 of them are peacocks. My white peacock Frosty rules the pen and likes to make things difficult for the other 2 males. He chases them, won't allow them to go certain places in the pen, sneaks up and kicks one of them if he is displaying, flies up and kicks at the other if he is on a roost too close to Frosty's side, etc. When Alto was in charge instead of Frosty things were not so crazy. Some peacocks are nicer to the others and some like to be dictators.

I think you will have much more to worry about with them seeing each other as competition rather than seeing you as competition. Everyone has a different way of keeping peafowl and some people don't like to think of them as pets and try to tame them which is fine. My goal is to get all of mine friendly. I find it weird how in some videos of people showing their peafowl their birds are running away from them and run to the far corner of the pen to get away. I don't want my birds to be afraid of me or stressed every time they see me or another person so I like to work with them a little to tame them down. This doesn't mean holding them all the time or something, but I do like to get them all to where they are comfortable eating out of my hand. I have one peacock named Peep that I hand raised and he is four years old now. He lets me pet him and he walks up to me and pecks my fingers asking to be pet. He does not see me as a threat, but he does see me as a potential mate and now the white peacock sees me as that too sometimes. That isn't bad though all I have to do is walk away from them like what the peahens do.

If you free-range them all together that can be different. We have a friend that used to just free-range all peacocks and no peahens and then one day some peahens showed up and now they are raising peachicks. Peacocks won't always stay around if you don't have any peahens for them though. I have always heard that you always want more peahens than peacocks, and there was something I read about it being better to have an odd number of peacocks than an even number, but so far having 3 peacocks doesn't seem to keep the peace here.

I think it is very rare to have a peacock that is aggressive to people. There are some people who travel around to zoos doing a show with 7 or so peacocks. They have trained the peacocks to do all sorts of stunts and they handle the peacocks A LOT. I emailed them asking them some questions and one question I asked is if they ever have issues with the peacocks becoming aggressive to them and they said in all the years they have been working with peacocks they have never had an issue with aggression.

I think the children will be fine with the peafowl as long as they don't chase them and don't startle them and you keep an eye on both the kids and the feathered kids.
My parents had some friends over and they brought their little kids and the youngest got in my peafowl pen and was chasing all of the peafowl and they were freaking out bouncing off of the netting. It was terrible my birds were afraid of me and any other person for the rest of the week.

 

[MA Mama]

Thanks for your input... Much appreciated! Will definitely aim to keep one roo and some hens to keep him around. Will be free ranging after a significant "this is where you live" period!

Some peacocks just have it in them to pick on the others. I have 7 peafowl in a pen and 3 of them are peacocks. My white peacock Frosty rules the pen and likes to make things difficult for the other 2 males. He chases them, won't allow them to go certain places in the pen, sneaks up and kicks one of them if he is displaying, flies up and kicks at the other if he is on a roost too close to Frosty's side, etc. When Alto was in charge instead of Frosty things were not so crazy. Some peacocks are nicer to the others and some like to be dictators. I think you will have much more to worry about with them seeing each other as competition rather than seeing you as competition. Everyone has a different way of keeping peafowl and some people don't like to think of them as pets and try to tame them which is fine. My goal is to get all of mine friendly. I find it weird how in some videos of people showing their peafowl their birds are running away from them and run to the far corner of the pen to get away. I don't want my birds to be afraid of me or stressed every time they see me or another person so I like to work with them a little to tame them down. This doesn't mean holding them all the time or something, but I do like to get them all to where they are comfortable eating out of my hand. I have one peacock named Peep that I hand raised and he is four years old now. He lets me pet him and he walks up to me and pecks my fingers asking to be pet. He does not see me as a threat, but he does see me as a potential mate and now the white peacock sees me as that too sometimes. That isn't bad though all I have to do is walk away from them like what the peahens do. If you free-range them all together that can be different. We have a friend that used to just free-range all peacocks and no peahens and then one day some peahens showed up and now they are raising peachicks. Peacocks won't always stay around if you don't have any peahens for them though. I have always heard that you always want more peahens than peacocks, and there was something I read about it being better to have an odd number of peacocks than an even number, but so far having 3 peacocks doesn't seem to keep the peace here. I think it is very rare to have a peacock that is aggressive to people. There are some people who travel around to zoos doing a show with 7 or so peacocks. They have trained the peacocks to do all sorts of stunts and they handle the peacocks A LOT. I emailed them asking them some questions and one question I asked is if they ever have issues with the peacocks becoming aggressive to them and they said in all the years they have been working with peacocks they have never had an issue with aggression. I think the children will be fine with the peafowl as long as they don't chase them and don't startle them and you keep an eye on both the kids and the feathered kids. My parents had some friends over and they brought their little kids and the youngest got in my peafowl pen and was chasing all of the peafowl and they were freaking out bouncing off of the netting. It was terrible my birds were afraid of me and any other person for the rest of the week.

 

[Birdrain92]

Will the same concept work for my children - just avoiding them? Or will they see the small size as a threat no matter what?

At the zoo near me the peacock became aggressive because their wings had been clipped preventing them from flight and children would pull feathers. Peafowl their first option is to try and fly away when you take that away they have to go to the next move is attacking. After so many children trying to pull feathers the peacock associated kids to be attacked and the zoo had to get rid of the peacock. In my opinion I would get them used to people. My tame peafowl don't mind people and seem to trust them so long as I remain calm and the person doesn't try anything stupid. As for my adult pair that I didn't work with like my others they trust me and those they've seen regularly. When there's a complete stranger though they began to get nervous and freak out and become flighty and don't care what's in the way. If you're peafowl learn to trust people and remain calm around them so long as they don't do anything stupid they shouldn't attack them. They are animals though and can be unpredictable. People have to know that they must respect them.
These are my three tame peafowl. My adult pair are tame but don't let me hold them like these three. They just eat out of my hand or coffee bucket I use to feed them.
My White yearling peacock Ice.

My yearling Black Shoulder peahen Marshmallow.

My yearling Spalding Split To White peahen Thora.
My adult pair Colbolt and Sage.

 

[MA Mama]

Thank you, that is great info. How do your peafowl react to strangers in the yard? I have young kids... and they have young friends! obviously they could never be in a position to mistreat the pea, but they would be strangers.