Peacock aggressively attacking peahen

[user425634]

I don’t know much at all about peacocks and their behavior so please bear with me. My father died 3 days ago and he had a small farm with chickens, ducks, peafowl and pheasants. 1 peacock is free range and just hangs around the property, if I remember correctly this one just showed up out of nowhere one day. The others are in a large coop together. They’ve grown up in there their entire lives. It’s 2 peahens (they’re different colors but I don’t recall which) and one purple peacock.

They’re probably about 6 or so years old. In the times that I did see them I didn’t see any aggression. Tonight I heard the peahen screaming bloody murder. When I went outside the peacock was flying at her and pinning her against the fence as he pecked at the side of her neck. She managed to get out and fly up to one of the roosts but he just followed and again was pecking her over and over again in the neck. She looked terrified. I got on there and chased him off the roost. She ended up getting down too and dropped to the ground completely lying down and looking stressed. I have never seen her like that before. After corralling him for a good half hour (their nails terrify me so I’m extra careful around them) I got him into another coop which is currently unoccupied.

Should I be worried? Was that mating behavior and I’m just blowing it out of proportion? The peahen is currently back on the roost with her wings fully dropped down and panting with her mouth open wide. Some behavior I’ve never seen before as well.

 

[KsKingBee]

Aggression towards a hen is normally because of an outside influence, one from outside of the pen. I suggest that the free range cock is pacing the fence and the Purple cock wants to fight him to defend his territory and his hens. When a cock can not get to the bird outside to run him off he gets frustrated and takes it out on his hens. Once he loses his train and breeding season is over this all stops. In the meantime you should give the hen a place to hide, most people will lean a pallet against the wall or something the hen can hide behind.