Do I Want a Pet Peacock?

[SCM1959]

A good friend and her husband are downsizing from his large farm to a house in a subdivision. They have a pet peacock named Big Blue and they have asked if he can come to my property (20 acres) to live when they move. Big Blue is quite tame and he comes when he is called. He lives outside even though a barn is available. I don’t know how old he is, but he is at least 7 or 8 years old.

I know nothing about peacocks. Do I want one as a pet?

I have a horse, a pony, two pygmy goats, a medium sized dog, two cats and a rabbit. And a four and one-half year old child (boy).

Advice?

[DHCarrotfeeder]

How are your family and neighbors with this idea?

They don’t make noise often, but when they do, you’ll hear it.

[Simbalism]

They are quite noisy at times. Think rooster, but at all times of the day. My friend has a peacock and some pea hens at her farm. Good bombproofing if you think your horse(s) need it. I took my young mare to her farm for a schooling session. I had mare tied to trailer to tack up. The peahens decided it would be a good thing to wander around behind her. She was ok with this, until the peacock came up behind her, put his tail out and started fluttering it.

[Heart_s_Journey]

They will also peck at shiny stuff and mirrors - so your side mirrors on your car are at risk.

[Fergs]

They also fly, which is something I didn’t know until one flew above my horse’s head one day and I almost didn’t survive the encounter!

[yaya]

Have you got a flight cage you could keep him in when he first arrives? If not, don’t expect him to stay at your house, he’ll probably try to go home!

We had 65 acres, and when we turned our first flock loose, they immediately flew off and ended up at a nearby golf course. We only recovered 3 of the 4. Never knew what happened to the male we couldn’t catch. After that, every new set got several weeks in a flight cage before being turned loose, so they could learn where home was.

[Epona142]

How close are your neighbors?

When it’s screaming “HELP HELP HELP” over your window at 5am you’ll rethink the whole thing, if it doesn’t fly away first!

Beautiful birds though.

[SuckerForHorses]

The short answer is “NO”

Our neighbors, several houses up the road, had one. That thing was SO LOUD most of the day and you could hear it clearly at our house.

[dkcbr]

There was a small flock of peacocks at my first boarding barn. Pretty but kind of aggressive. Seemed like if we got anywhere near “their” area of the barnyard, they got really grumpy and came at us. Noisily. They were not at all pet-like. :no:

[SCM1959]

I am not getting positive thoughts on this pet peacock idea. I am going to tell my friend that we will not be able to help with a home for the peacock. On my FB page, a friend of another friend described the peacock poop as the size and configuration of “an ice cream cone”. And she said it is just all over the place, wherever the peacock happens to be when he has to go. Nope, nope, nope.

Thank you to COTH for the advice. This is just the best forum!

[Jarpur]

I would like to give the positive side, as we had peafowl for several years. My husband just said that he thought they were wonderful to have around, that they enriched our lives with their beauty, and that they had real personality.

Previously, I, too had heard the common wisdom about how noisy they supposedly were. But, fortunately, while on a weekend trail ride, an old cowboy told me that the calling was really only for a couple of months during breeding season.

We took a chance on a pair and found that to be true. Our peacock only called during March to May, and not that often even then. In exchange, we enjoyed his great beauty (and our peahen’s loving personality; our vet called her Sweetheart, as she was a living doll) and the benefits of snake and superb scorpion control.

Perhaps the noise is a greater problem when multiple males are competing for the females? Having had chickens and living between neighbors with chickens, a single peacock is nothing like the daily, much more constant noise of a rooster, IMO. If our peahen lost sight of her mate, which only happened a couple of times, she’d get on top of our barn and call for him, however, it was not raucous.

We still miss them, although a couple of neighbors now have peafowl (and we haven’t heard a peep yet, although admittedly they aren’t super close), especially when we have to deal with scorpions. No problems whatsoever with mirrors or poop (ice cream cone?! our birds never had that; the only time we ever noticed bird poop was during intense storms, when they would hang out on the covered washrack for hours - it just looked like normal bird poop, nothing extraordinary). Never grumpy or unfriendly, but I guess that could depend on the individual bird.

We did keep them confined for a couple of weeks before we released them. Every year, I’d collect the peacock’s tail feathers when he’d shed them; friends and crafters always wanted them.

By the way, they hated squirrels with a passion. And, they would show up when I rode in the arena (guess the dust was kicking up the occasional bug).

[yaya]

Yes. The “pea-caca”, as we call it in my family, does get messy. They poop whenever and wherever. We had to hose off the porch frequently.

They also eat blueberries right off the bush, and it’s not just the side mirrors on your car they like. We had one male that would “fight” the male he saw in a shiny paint job on a car (much to the paint job’s detriment), and he broke out many of our boathouse windows attacking “the other male”.

I loved the peacocks (they would come up and eat peanuts out of your hand), and they had cute babies (also a lot of work, between the incubators and various sized cages as they grew), but once our “herd” reached 24, I think my parents had had enough. The peacocks went to a children’s petting zoo and to various veterinary students.

[lorilu]

OMG, not if you are my neighbor!! That crying child call… at night… messy… just no.

[Ghazzu]

How much do you hate your neighbors?

[SPRINGBORO]

ahahaha… we were recently adopted by a peacock and loved it. He certainly makes noises, which sound like the bird from the movie Up! (so we had been calling him Kevin!) So pretty and seemingly low maintenance, but stand-offish and non-pet like. He actually found another neighbor he apparently likes better, so we only see him occasionally now. Original owner wants him home, but he roams on his own.

[NancyM]

We had one that showed up at our previous farm, about ten years ago. A boy. Don’t know where he came from. He was not tame, but we appreciated his beauty from a distance. Was never mean, or interacted with us at all. His call was something we got used to. No poop problems that we ever noticed, he roosted in our broodmare shelter barn, no stalls, and hung out down there, in the pastures etc. He was no problem. I liked him. He disappeared eventually.

[LesleyW]

A good friend who once had one described it as a “special needs drag queen”.

[Sport]

The comments about neighbours is funny, because we had one and the neighbours are really close (beside riding ring on one side and right beside the barn on the other. When he died of old age, they all wanted to get us a new one. We did try, but were never able to successfully keep them at home.

There call is loud, but once you know what it is, not really bothersome.

I would love to have another one around the farm.

[saddleup]

NO! The people next to the barn where I boarded my horses had two, and they were so loud and obnoxious.

In California I went to the Gallo winery headquarters and they had them on their grounds. Those suckers attacked people as they walked through “their” parking lot. Pretty disconcerting as you head in for a business meeting to suddenly be chased by a peacock. And then, you get back to your car, and there’s one on the roof, daring you to come closer.

Maybe they were trained attack birds? I never went back!

[lcw579]

<sigh> Despite all the negative reviews, now I want a peacock! LOL