Why?

[hairco]

I see that some people have their peacocks separated or pair off as male & female.Can you tell me why.I see Kenyrygirl has 2 males in the same run/pen.

 

[Frosty]

I think in some cases it's to separate by color. In any case, when you have them separated you know who the parents are (in some cases I have heard of breeders who could even tell which hen the eggs are from based on the hens laying cycle). Last year I had my pair in a pen and had their two year old son in with them. I hatched out an egg and have no idea of which is the father. I am still trying to figure out what color the chick is, and it would have been nice to know which male was the father in case I wanted to try different colored hens with him.

 

[hairco]

Oh that is smart.I just thought that they might fight is you had males together

 

[PeaChecker]

Oh that is smart.I just thought that they might fight is you had males together

If you have two adult males together you never know what happens. They can start to fight and if you miss the right time to separate them you can have a very bad surprise.

 

[Kev]

yeah various reasons- by color, to know parentage, don't want bad surprises etc.

some males will tolerate other males as long as they all know their places in the male pecking order. some just can't tolerate either males in general or a male may be generally tolerant but have a very bad grudge against individual males.

for several years I had a pen of 5 males and one female. the males clearly had a pecking order but they tolerated each other well, no damaged feathers or injuries. unlike chickens, peacocks don't rape the females like roosters do so that peahen was in perfect condition- helped the pen was huge and roomy though- probably another reason for separating the males, could go with minimum pen size as five males displaying at the same REALLY takes up a lot of room.