I'm glad you think it sounds like a good pet, now let me explain the behaviors I've listed that you think sound good. Bear in mind, Gizmo is only 4 months old and weighs around 6lbs, so he is roughly half his adult size/weight. These things will only get worse the bigger he gets.
Gizmo "stands still" for applying his diaper. - I put stands still in quotes because he will only stand still after a fight, and he screams through most of it. Not pain screams, just really annoyed at me screams... and that's just his baby voice.
He wiggles when I clip his wings but he's learned it's a thing he won't get away from. - He learned this over the course of 4 months during which he panic-flailed and screamed. He still screams when I do it, he just doesn't struggle hard enough to get away or injure himself.
He plays with cat toys - He breaks a lot of cat toys, too, tearing apart the stuffed ones and smashing the plastic ones. He will also "defend" his kills from the cats by attacking them if they get too close.
preens on the toilet seat outside the shower when I shower - He has destroyed the bottoms of 2 shower curtains pecking holes in them trying to eat the water droplets as they slide down and now is banished to the toilet seat instead of the floor. The only way to get him to stay on the toilet is to put a towel there, and it becomes covered in dander/feather sheaths by the end.
chases/plays with the cats - They hate this 98% of the time, except the young stupid cat that isn't all there. He also randomly ambushes them while they are sleeping by jumping on top of them, and we haven't found a way to stop him yet.
Begs for food worse than any dog I've ever met - By begs, I mean he will scream and scream and scream and if you do not placate him with food, he will jump onto your plate, into your bowl, onto your head, into your lap, onto the table where the food is etc to get to the food himself. I started giving him his own bowl of food, but he has figured out his celery/cucumbers/whatever veggie/meat I've given him is not the same as what I am eating. If we shut him into someplace else while we eat, he screams constantly until let out again. He flings food EVERYWHERE.
follows me around the house - This is about the most harmless thing Gizmo does, except when he gets underfoot and trips people.
sits on my lap when he can get away with it (and on my shins or shoulders when he can't get away with my lap) - This was really cute when he weighed less than a pound. Now he weighs 6lbs and most of the time it's obnoxious.
and slept on my chest or hip every night for the first 3 months of his life. - He was not large enough to wear a diaper until he was a little less than 3 months old. Sheets are expensive, and washing them only does so much. It was cute, but not a great idea.
He knows how to shoulder surf like a pro when we visit the pet store - My shoulders/neck/head have permanent scars from teaching him this behavior, and I get new scratches every time he does this.
will let just about anyone pet him if he's on my shoulder/forearm/hands - This one's pretty cool, actually.
and will lay still if I flip him onto his back because when he was tiny and had SUPER SHARP CLAWS that is how I would clip/file the tips. - The reason I had to start clipping/filing his nails in the first place was because I figured out my supervisors were checking on me at work like 6 times a day because they were concerned about the NUMEROUS scratches all over my arms/hands/neck/shoulders/legs/anywhere Gizmo perched in the summer. They were concerned I was *hurting myself* because the scratches were so many, even through clothing. I had to bring in pictures and explain my project before they stopped this behavior.
He "steps back" when I put one hand over him and one hand behind his legs, so that he can sit on my hand to be moved - Again, MANY scratches and a lot of sore spots on my face/arms/shoulders/chest from him flailing his wings out for balance when I lift him... and that's just from BABY wings. Adults peafowl have SO MUCH STRONGER wings, I can't even fathom getting whacked by them on a daily basis. And this isn't even panic or struggle, this is just him gaining balance.
He actively seeks out physical attention by "digging" at my hands if I'm not petting him when he wants to be pet- and I don't mean a nose stroke or a hand over his back... he wants his whole face rubbed down and for me to wiggle my fingers into his feathers and scritch around... he even sometimes lifts a wing for me to rub under it. This is cool, unless I'm doing something else, which is usually the reason I'm not already petting him. He will scream the entire time he is doing this behavior, and if I don't pay attention by the "digging" phase of this tantrum, he will start trying to climb on me/jump on me to get my attention. He has broken my laptop's keyboard once during one of these tantrums.
He knows that when I'm in the kitchen cooking, he will get veggie bits (or unseasoned meat bits, he loves cooked beef crumbles) - He is constantly underfoot in the kitchen, including when I am carrying heavy things, hot things, liquid things, anything. He doesn't jump onto the counters anymore because he made the mistake of jumping onto the stove exactly once while I was cooking breakfast when he was little. He didn't (thank god) injure/burn himself (the burner he landed on was very hot, but not BURNING hot, and the fire on the next burner scared the crap out of him) but he could have.
He knows when I turn off the lights in the main room that it's "bedtime" and will walk into the bedroom, hop onto the bed, and stand by the corner of the bed where his roosting bookshelf is - He will stand there screaming, having a pacing anxiety attack because, I don't know, he thinks we'll forget to put him up there or something.
When I leave the room even for less than a minute, Gizmo has anxiety over it. When I have to leave for work and leave him in his pen, it doesn't matter if there is someone else home; he screams for at least an hour, and has HUGE separation anxiety issues until I get back. My entire house REEKS of bird- not poop, just BIRD, and we have to vacuum a couple times a week just to cut down on the dander. My clothes smell like bird. Every heat lamp we use for perch training raises my electric bill by 50 cents per day. The couch he favors as a perch is (and we knew it was going to be when we got it second hand) a complete lost cause for ever being clean or whole again. He hates the dog, and attacks her whenever he can. He also hates one of my room mates (thankfully not the one that's staying).
Gizmo is only 4 months old, so he still has just his baby voice and already spends so much time SCREAMING. For no good reason, he will sometimes just walk around the house SCREAMING like he just wants all of us to know where he is. I'm not talking cute peacock noises, because he has those to, I'm talking full on "SCREE SCREE SCREE SCREE SCREE" at the top of his little birdy lungs. He's not upset, he's not in pain, he's just talking to us... at 95 decibels. I cannot fathom how much worse it will be when he is an adult.
These are all things I'm prepared to tolerate and handle appropriately.
As for your solution for "pinning" the wings down in a diaper is CRUEL. They use their wings - even clipped - for balance (while walking, while jumping, while landing from jumping), and they need as much access to their feathers as possible in order to preen new feathers and keep the old ones oiled. In order to "pin" their wings, you would effectively have to put the bird into a whole-body sock. This would be so incredibly stressful, not to mention super bad for their feather health.
You asked us for advice on keeping a peacock as an indoor pet, and it sounds like you just don't like the answer/truth? I know you don't want to clip their wings, but you're absolutely putting your own needs before the bird's needs, and if you want to imprint a peafowl and keep it indoors, that's something you just cannot do. The bird and its needs have to come first.
Gizmo "stands still" for applying his diaper. - I put stands still in quotes because he will only stand still after a fight, and he screams through most of it. Not pain screams, just really annoyed at me screams... and that's just his baby voice.
He wiggles when I clip his wings but he's learned it's a thing he won't get away from. - He learned this over the course of 4 months during which he panic-flailed and screamed. He still screams when I do it, he just doesn't struggle hard enough to get away or injure himself.
He plays with cat toys - He breaks a lot of cat toys, too, tearing apart the stuffed ones and smashing the plastic ones. He will also "defend" his kills from the cats by attacking them if they get too close.
preens on the toilet seat outside the shower when I shower - He has destroyed the bottoms of 2 shower curtains pecking holes in them trying to eat the water droplets as they slide down and now is banished to the toilet seat instead of the floor. The only way to get him to stay on the toilet is to put a towel there, and it becomes covered in dander/feather sheaths by the end.
chases/plays with the cats - They hate this 98% of the time, except the young stupid cat that isn't all there. He also randomly ambushes them while they are sleeping by jumping on top of them, and we haven't found a way to stop him yet.
Begs for food worse than any dog I've ever met - By begs, I mean he will scream and scream and scream and if you do not placate him with food, he will jump onto your plate, into your bowl, onto your head, into your lap, onto the table where the food is etc to get to the food himself. I started giving him his own bowl of food, but he has figured out his celery/cucumbers/whatever veggie/meat I've given him is not the same as what I am eating. If we shut him into someplace else while we eat, he screams constantly until let out again. He flings food EVERYWHERE.
follows me around the house - This is about the most harmless thing Gizmo does, except when he gets underfoot and trips people.
sits on my lap when he can get away with it (and on my shins or shoulders when he can't get away with my lap) - This was really cute when he weighed less than a pound. Now he weighs 6lbs and most of the time it's obnoxious.
and slept on my chest or hip every night for the first 3 months of his life. - He was not large enough to wear a diaper until he was a little less than 3 months old. Sheets are expensive, and washing them only does so much. It was cute, but not a great idea.
He knows how to shoulder surf like a pro when we visit the pet store - My shoulders/neck/head have permanent scars from teaching him this behavior, and I get new scratches every time he does this.
will let just about anyone pet him if he's on my shoulder/forearm/hands - This one's pretty cool, actually.
and will lay still if I flip him onto his back because when he was tiny and had SUPER SHARP CLAWS that is how I would clip/file the tips. - The reason I had to start clipping/filing his nails in the first place was because I figured out my supervisors were checking on me at work like 6 times a day because they were concerned about the NUMEROUS scratches all over my arms/hands/neck/shoulders/legs/anywhere Gizmo perched in the summer. They were concerned I was *hurting myself* because the scratches were so many, even through clothing. I had to bring in pictures and explain my project before they stopped this behavior.
He "steps back" when I put one hand over him and one hand behind his legs, so that he can sit on my hand to be moved - Again, MANY scratches and a lot of sore spots on my face/arms/shoulders/chest from him flailing his wings out for balance when I lift him... and that's just from BABY wings. Adults peafowl have SO MUCH STRONGER wings, I can't even fathom getting whacked by them on a daily basis. And this isn't even panic or struggle, this is just him gaining balance.
He actively seeks out physical attention by "digging" at my hands if I'm not petting him when he wants to be pet- and I don't mean a nose stroke or a hand over his back... he wants his whole face rubbed down and for me to wiggle my fingers into his feathers and scritch around... he even sometimes lifts a wing for me to rub under it. This is cool, unless I'm doing something else, which is usually the reason I'm not already petting him. He will scream the entire time he is doing this behavior, and if I don't pay attention by the "digging" phase of this tantrum, he will start trying to climb on me/jump on me to get my attention. He has broken my laptop's keyboard once during one of these tantrums.
He knows that when I'm in the kitchen cooking, he will get veggie bits (or unseasoned meat bits, he loves cooked beef crumbles) - He is constantly underfoot in the kitchen, including when I am carrying heavy things, hot things, liquid things, anything. He doesn't jump onto the counters anymore because he made the mistake of jumping onto the stove exactly once while I was cooking breakfast when he was little. He didn't (thank god) injure/burn himself (the burner he landed on was very hot, but not BURNING hot, and the fire on the next burner scared the crap out of him) but he could have.
He knows when I turn off the lights in the main room that it's "bedtime" and will walk into the bedroom, hop onto the bed, and stand by the corner of the bed where his roosting bookshelf is - He will stand there screaming, having a pacing anxiety attack because, I don't know, he thinks we'll forget to put him up there or something.
When I leave the room even for less than a minute, Gizmo has anxiety over it. When I have to leave for work and leave him in his pen, it doesn't matter if there is someone else home; he screams for at least an hour, and has HUGE separation anxiety issues until I get back. My entire house REEKS of bird- not poop, just BIRD, and we have to vacuum a couple times a week just to cut down on the dander. My clothes smell like bird. Every heat lamp we use for perch training raises my electric bill by 50 cents per day. The couch he favors as a perch is (and we knew it was going to be when we got it second hand) a complete lost cause for ever being clean or whole again. He hates the dog, and attacks her whenever he can. He also hates one of my room mates (thankfully not the one that's staying).
Gizmo is only 4 months old, so he still has just his baby voice and already spends so much time SCREAMING. For no good reason, he will sometimes just walk around the house SCREAMING like he just wants all of us to know where he is. I'm not talking cute peacock noises, because he has those to, I'm talking full on "SCREE SCREE SCREE SCREE SCREE" at the top of his little birdy lungs. He's not upset, he's not in pain, he's just talking to us... at 95 decibels. I cannot fathom how much worse it will be when he is an adult.
These are all things I'm prepared to tolerate and handle appropriately.
As for your solution for "pinning" the wings down in a diaper is CRUEL. They use their wings - even clipped - for balance (while walking, while jumping, while landing from jumping), and they need as much access to their feathers as possible in order to preen new feathers and keep the old ones oiled. In order to "pin" their wings, you would effectively have to put the bird into a whole-body sock. This would be so incredibly stressful, not to mention super bad for their feather health.
You asked us for advice on keeping a peacock as an indoor pet, and it sounds like you just don't like the answer/truth? I know you don't want to clip their wings, but you're absolutely putting your own needs before the bird's needs, and if you want to imprint a peafowl and keep it indoors, that's something you just cannot do. The bird and its needs have to come first.