Will free-range peacocks fight?

[Arbor]

I have a pair of bronze (4 yr olds) - adding another hen after she is wormed, opal male (3 yrs), purple pair (2 yrs), midnight pair (2 yrs), bs hen (4 yrs), bs male (2 yrs). In total 5 males and 4 hens, with a 5th hen being added within two weeks. It seems that the birds temperment really determines status within the flock. The bronze male is very dominant. The opal male generally cowers away from him, even though they are the same size, but he is second in rank. My purple male is generally lowest on the chain. He only seems dominant over the bronze hen, which seems weird, because she outranks some of the others. Its very complicated, but they all know their place without having any skirmishes. THat said, I had a white leghorn male that used to fight with my bronze male, even though he was half the size - honestly I think his brain was half the size too, as he seemed to have domination issues with everything, including the feed barrel.

Oh, and the pen is the hay loft portion of my old bank barn - its about 20' x 30' and is only their winter home. I reduce the numbers in that pen to 1 male and up to 3 hens. I don't have enough outdoor breeding pens to hold the birds, so I use this as one of them. Its got lots of light coming through the windows, and their perch looks out them. They love to sit in the sun on the colder days.

 

[coleridgedane]

Why don't you free-range? It seems they're all pretty settled & homed in?

 

[Arbor]

I only have 1 1/4 acres and I live on a very busy road. My birds have cost me too much to let them get killed on the highway. If I lived on a gravel road away from all the bussle it wouldn't be a problem.

 

[MinxFox]

There might be little scuffles with the peacocks especially if one peacock enters another peacock's display area. They all have their set areas they display in and no other male is allowed to enter it. Mainly as long as there are enough peahens for the peacocks they should be okay. I don't free-range any peafowl yet. I did free-range my first pair but that didn't go so well but I do want to try it again someday. I visit this peafowl breeder thought that always has a lot of free-range peafowl and every year the peacocks are always displaying in the same location. The white one is always front and center in the backyard and the blackshoulder peacock is always right next to the green peafowl pen. I was watching the blackshoulder peacock display and a two year old peacock walked into his "territory" and the blackshoulder stopped displaying to jump on the two year old and the two year old ran off. Peacocks don't seem to tolerate two year old peacocks and peahens don't seem to tolerate yearling peacocks.

 

[zazouse]

Quote:
I never seen any of my peas fight, a peck on the head once in a while.
My youngest is just over a year old and my oldest just turned 2 and the younger one is the boss around here, he is bigger than the 2 year old also.

This years hatch is now 6 months old and have been free ranging sence they turned 4 months, they are just starting to range a bit farther with the older peas but stay close to the barn still.
All of them get along great.
Marry Christmas

 

[nfrost]

Is it possible to have a dominate hen, over 5, 6 month old males? She is meaner to the blackshoulder male bit runs and jumps on all of them, and when there eating she eats first and won't let the others eat until she is done, will this change?

 

[MinxFox]

Yes peahens don't seem to like young males. When my peacock Alto was a yearling my adult peahen Ice would jump on him and peck at him and scared him off of food too but once he was two, he started getting tough and chased her all around to show that he was now the boss. Young birds are normally picked on like that.

 

[Kev]

Quote:
My experience with free range peacocks matches this, along the 'mixed up' hierarchy mentioned by Arbor. Some males were 'buddies', didn't fight with each other, most males you could tell did not care much about other males but tolerated as long as everybody knew and stayed in their place. A few could not tolerate other males very well, spending a fair amount of time trying to shoo away males below their own ranking and bluffing at or picking fights with the ones dominant over them.

Some males like to act all calm, until a male is displaying then he sneaks up behind them and give a good kick....

Also, some males liked to always display by themselves, with one or several favorite spots, not interested in "sharing" his display space, ever. Many of the males in addition of their favored spots would come to a large open spot(at my place it was the driveway and a large flat area behind the house) and basically make a lek, several males displaying close together at the same time(gorgeous sight!).

 

[Kev]

Quote:
Yes, either the male will directly challenge the hen or a male will constantly "court" the hen until she eventually stops being hostile to him. If she is still dominant over the males when they are two years old, a male that doesn't directly challenge her still will try to display at her and try to do surprise matings- either letting out the mating call and running at the hen very fast... sometimes a hen will crouch in a knee jerk reaction and he will breed her.

In general, all birds a year old or less are considered 'inferior' to the adults. Even full grown adult males may be aggressive towards yearling hens- shooing them away but very flirtatious with hens 2 yrs or older. It's like they knew if a hen was a potential reproductive mate or not.

Also some mother peahens become aggressive towards her own babies from the previous season once she starts breeding/laying again. Some mother them right down until she has new chicks.

 

[clinton9]

Not all yearling peacocks are weaklings, few are dominate to peahens, most are being dominated & chased off by peahens.

In the shot 1-year-old peacock, at 20th month of age, after I plucked the peacock, the meat look very muscular, with strong brest muscles , and as growth of bodies of young peacocks, stop growing slowly at same time as post 2nd year moult is in way.

In MinxFox's peafowls, for 2 last years Alto were the lowest rank peacock as a yearling, but during Alto's 2nd summertime, as a 2-year bird, Alto's body had caught up with growth and Alto had to face being the lowest rank bird, plus 8 months moult, (start on April and finish on Dec)
At his 3rd birthday he was a fully grown bird, no longer a growing bird.

After Alto had finished his 8 month moult and his body had became muscular few weeks later, about early this month (Dec), Alto is readly bigger and taller and much stronger than peahens.

Now Alto is the highest rank peafowl, after a fight with Ice the highest rank peahen.

Thanks to MinxFox for feeding Alto so well, this had helped Alto caught up with his growth, so Alto were very lucky to be able to reach fully body size before end of this year.

Alto being a dominate bird now, can look forward to able to grow bigger longer train, with more eyes, on next year, as long as MinxFox keep Alto well fed.

When peacocks argue, they walking around in a O, then either one or two birds jump up and clawing at other each, using their long spurs.
This may last up to 15 or 20 mins.

Train feathers get broken during fighting, plus few blue breast feathers and few dark green lower breast feathers flying as claws & spurs rip in other peafowl's body.

Fight is finished when a loser bird run away, being chased by a winner bird.

Happy Christmas.