These are our pet peacocks, Trent (we bought him from a woman who lived in a really rural area off of a Trent Road and the whole time we were like “where’s Trent Road? where’s Trent Road?” so we named him Trent) and Sweet Pea (she’s the white one). They are still pretty young. Trent actually just opened his tail up for the first time on the day this video was taken and it’s kind of amusing because he doesn’t have a train yet, so he’s just got one round back fan. We are actually hoping that Sweet Pea is a peahen (female), and she seems to be, but it’s hard to sex peachicks, which is what they were when we got them.

This video probably answers the question that a lot of people have, which is “Can chickens and peacocks live together?” Not only do these four live together in a pen, but Sweet Pea actually got so upset the first time we let the chickens out and not the peacocks (they were new to the pen but the chickens had been in there all along, so, when we first moved the peacocks in with them they all stayed in together for awhile before we let the chickens back out again) to roam, Sweat Pea and Trent got unbelievably upset. They kept pacing and honking until the chickens were rounded back up and safely brought back in to them.

There is a disease called Blackhead peacocks can get from chickens, but danger varies (you can read more about Blackhead here) and, as you can see, ours are okay. Socially, they all do depend on each other, as we found out that day.

We have since started letting the peacocks out too. It started as an accident when they went out the open door of the pen while it was being cleaned. They stayed close by, following the silkies in and out of the nearby bushes and trees, and then went back in the pen at nighttime.

The next day we let them out again a few hours for dusk and they did about the same thing, so we’ve been doing it ever since. They really seem to enjoy their time out of the pen, although they are very cautious and look around quite a bit. They also don’t go very far either, which is good because one of our neighbors would likely not appreciate our peacocks being in their yard.

They are lightening up and learning what they can do. As mentioned, Trent did open up his tail feathers today. Also, Sweet Pea flew for the first time. And it just happened to be over my head. You haven’t lived until a 20 or so pound bird flies a couple feet above your hair. It’s kind of wild.

In a perfect world, they’d be able to be out all the time, but there are all kinds of potential predators, including dogs. But, we will let them explore as much as possible. Besides being great for them, it’s breathtaking just to watch them and leads to all kinds of great picture-taking opportunities. At this point, they still very young and when got them when they only a week old. At that time they were so small they looked at lot like the baby chicks we had at the same time. They grew fast though and seem to change all the time. Hence, probably many more peacock tales coming.

Stay tuned!