Can males co-exist if there are no females to fight over?

[dheltzel]

I'm new to keeping peafowl. We have 6 that were hatched last summer and I think we may have only one hen. If that is the case, can I separate 1 pair and leave the other 4 males together? Will they hurt each other as they mature, of co-exist as a bachelor group? The roosters (chickens) I've raised seem to get along fine as long as there are no hens and if they are raised together and used to seeing the others.

I may sell or trade the extra males, but if they will get along peacefully, a cage with 4 males peacocks could look awesome.

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Hello and

!
It sounds as though you are not sure how many hens you have?
If you post a picture we can check for you.
And...we love pictures here!

 

[zazouse]

 

[AugeredIn]

Generally males can coexist if there are no hens. There are exceptions to every rule however.

 

[dheltzel]

Is it more likely to work with 3 or 4 males than just 2? In chickens, I've had more success with a bunch of roosters together than with just 2. Seems like having more spreads out the aggression and prevents one from getting the brunt of the damage. If I do end up with extra males, I'm just trying to figure out optimal housing, or if it's just not likely to work well. These will be on public display for at least part of the year, so having one getting beat up is not an option (not that it ever should be). There is also to option to free range a male or 2, but we have a fox and coon problem and I don't want to lose them by letting them out. We free range a lot of chickens and guineas, but we get some losses there we just have to accept.

 

[AugeredIn]

I don't really know if more would be better, I think space is the governing factor. It has worked fine for us with everything from two to 10 but our smallest pens are 10' by 30'. We have spare males each year that go into a community male pen. I have had five or six together in one of those pens that have all done fine as long as there are no hens. We have really only had one problem male in the last five years with aggression. We had a midnight male that could not stand to be in a pen with another male at any time. Other than that we have even had relatively good luck with multiple mature males in one pen even with hens. They will establish dominance, but there is no physical damage and it calms down fairly quickly. I would not try it though unless I had to.

I think the biggest factor is room. If your pens are large you can eliminate most aggression. It has been my experience from visiting the larger breeders that it is common for them to have lots of mature males and even some hens in large flights aviaries and there is little aggression.

 

[dheltzel]

That's good information. Right now they are all in a 24 x 24 aviary with a 4 x 12 separate shelter. There are also 4 turkeys in there, but that's just for the winter. I am hoping to build another (similar size) in the spring to move the peacocks into. They will be one year old next summer, so I'm hoping they can all stay together until next winter.

Another question to help plan my expansion - I'm going to add some guineas next year. How will they co-exist (for the long term) with either peas or turkeys? The turkeys seem overly dominant now, and they are all hens, I expect it to get worse when we get a tom in there, so I plan to separate the peas as soon as I can. I know guineas are tough and fast, will they bother the peas, or the peas give them problems? Should I plan to keep them all separate? My current plan is to add some guineas to both the peas and the turkeys and watch how they do, but if someone can predict problems with one of those pairings, it might save some birds.

 

[AugeredIn]

Please take this with a grain of salt, but I would never mix my peafowl with any other birds. It is just to risky from the worm/parasite/disease side. I would not blame someone else for doing so but I just cant do it. Way to much time and money invested in the peafowl. My point of view is fairly one dimensional, however. We have many breeds of chickens and many colors/patterns of peafowl. We must keep them separate for breeding purposes.

 

[AugeredIn]

.....and PS, I hate turkeys unless they are being viewed off the business end of a rifle or under my knife and fork!

 

[AugeredIn]

.... PSS, ducks run a real close second to turkeys in terms of my dislike. Pretty but incredibly nasty.