Peacock behavior

[Farm mom]

Looking for some help. I have three peacock yearlings. We are very active with all of our fowl but I just can not get our peacocks to be anywhere near us. How can I make them more social???

 

[SunBaked]

Some of their favorite treats are mealworms, catfood and grapes. I just started spending time sitting near and throwing treats and they gradually got more and more tame. I still can't pet most of them but they are more relaxed when I am near them and they like to come to me to see if I have treats for them.

 

[MinxFox]

I can only pet the one that is imprinted to me. Peafowl are not as tame as chickens so they can be harder to tame down. Just like SunBaked said just feed them lots of treats and you can throw the treats near you, but when you find a treat they really love only give it to them by hand. It helps if you turn and look away from them so they don't feel threatened and they will be more comfortable to eat out of your hand. Then when they get more used to you they will eat from your hand. Popular hand feeding treats are: Bread; lettuce; mealworms; unsalted, unshelled peanuts; etc. In my area there are a lot of huckle berries and black berries ripening and the blue berries will soon be ready. The peafowl really love berries so hand feeding them that could work too. Sometimes it takes time. I like to think that once you have one that is not afraid to be near you and take food from your hand, the others will follow. Sometimes I will be in the pen sitting on the ground or crouched down petting Peep, my imprinted peacock (he thinks I am his mommy), and one of the peafowl will come up and lie down right in front of me and fall asleep so I have been able to gain a lot of trust with my birds. I don't think I will ever have them all wanting to be pet, but they run up to me instead of running to the other side of the pen when they see me. 3 of my 7 peafowl I got when they were yearlings and they are all friendly now and eat from my hand, although my peacocks always seem more friendly than my peahens.

Here is a list of a bunch of treats that my birds like: http://www.bamboopeacock.com/Treats_for_Peafowl.html

This is Ice, I got her as a yearling and now she is around 4 years old.


This is Peep, the only peafowl I can pet.

 

[Farm mom]

Thank you both so much! I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier. I went out today with berries and got them kind of close. Our birds free roam during the day and the peacocks don't seem interested in that or us. I am going to start with treats daily! Thanks!!!!