The late acclaimed southern writer Flannery O’Connor was a famous peacock aficionado. Following her 1964 death at age 39 her home Andalusia, a former cotton plantation, was eventually gifted in 2017 to her alma matter, Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Georgia. It is now a museum honoring her life. During her lifetime, she had up to 40-100 peafowl (the correct terminology for both male and female peacocks). Today, two peafowl named after a pair of her fictional characters are displayed at Andalusia in her memory. She wrote two novels and several volumes of short stories in her brief lifetime. O’Connor once said, “I intend to stand firm and let the peacocks multiply for I am sure that in the end the last word will be theirs.” When one of her flock died, a newspaper article saluted the deceased bird by noting, “The magnificent peacock—symbol of immortality, guardian of the Gates of Paradise, screecher at Andalusia Farm.”
Obviously, O’Connor was not, and is not, the only fan of peafowl. Peafowl—which include the male peacock, the female peahen and baby peachicks— remain magnificent eye-catchers to this day. Or at least the male peacock does, for it is the male peacock who has become synonymous with the name peacock. It is the male who boasts the beautiful, colorful feathers that cover its tail, called a train, which can be five feet long—longer than the bird’s body. Peahens are drabber than their male counterparts, mostly brown on their backs with a white-buff belly. Females also have a crest on their heads arranged in a fan shape, but they do not have long tail feathers like the males.
Unlike other large birds such as ostriches and emus, peafowl are among the largest birds that can fly. According to Michelle Roppel, who with husband John operates the 26-acre Tree Frog Farm, LLC, in King George, a peafowl breeding farm, most people are surprised to learn this. “You can see photos of them on the internet flying,” Roppel says. “Males in flight with their train behind them are just beautiful in flight.”
A reason they sometimes get an unwelcome reception is their screeching which was mentioned in the newspaper article regarding one of O’Connor’s peacocks is absolutely true. Roppel explains, “People don’t realize the decibel of their [males] calls to attract hens in breeding season. During the March to July breeding season, a male peacock might ‘call’ thirty to forty times a day. The call is extremely loud, and you cannot get earplugs that would drown it out.” Regarding the birds’ loud screeching calls, Roppel, a New Hampshire native who first began to raise and breed peafowl in 1997 while living in another state, says,” If I can hear them, I know they’re okay. So, for me hearing their call is comforting and tells me when the breeding season begins and ends”
Peafowl are the largest member of the pheasant family and include three main species: the Blue Indian peafowl; the Green Javanese Peafowl; and the Congo Peafowl. The Indian Blue Peafowl (Pavo cristatus), the most commonly recognized of the species, is a large, vibrantly colored bird native to India and Sri Lanka in south Asia. The peacock is India’s national bird. It is famous for the male’s iridescent royal blue body and long, decorative train of feathers featuring colorful eyespots, which he fans out during courtship. Females can weigh up to 8.8 pounds, and males can weigh up to 13 pounds
The Green Javanese Peafowl (Pavo muticus) (also known as the Java Green Peafowl) is native to Southeast Asia. It is the largest of all peafowl breeds and is distinct for its brilliant, iridescent green and copper plumage and tall, slender build. The Congo Peafowl (Afropavocongensis) is a rare, secretive bird native exclusively to the dense rainforests of the Congo Basin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It serves as the national bird of the DRC
While The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has proclaimed Blue Peafowl as being of “least concern,” the green peacock is listed as “endangered” and the Congo Peafowl is listed as “vulnerable.” IUCN says the number of Green Peafowl has fallen to an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 adult birds, and says the Congo Peafowl population has shrunk to less than 10,000 adults because of habitat loss and hunting. Tree Frog Farm, LLC, raises several colors of peafowl, including Indian blue, white eye, cameo, purple and spalding (Indian blue crossed with Java Green).
Peafowl are omnivores and ground feeders that eat insects, plants, small creatures and reptiles. At Tree Frog Farm, LLC, the Roppels feed their peafowl flock a rotating blend of chicken and gamebird feeds they purchase from King George Feed and Supply, LLC, dependent on the time of year.
The magnificent display of feathers by the male peacock is a courting display. Known as a train, it is covered with iridescent ocelli, which are round spots that resemble shining eyes. A male peacock can have as many as 100-175 ocelli. When a male wants to attract a female, he unfolds his train of spectacular feathers in a huge, fan-like semi-circle that can be up to seven feet wide.
Peahens raise chicks on their own, creating a ground nest that can house from three to eight eggs. The pea
hen will sit on her eggs almost constantly during a 28-to-30-day incubation period. Newly-hatched peachicks can walk and forage on their own immediately after hatching. Only days after hatching, a peachick can flap up into trees to escape predators. Unfortunately, peachicks have a high mortality rate, with only two out of six surviving to adulthood. Those that make it have long lives. In the wild, they can live up to 10-20 years, while domesticated peafowl have been known to live up to 50 years. Because there are so many peachick predators, Roppel has an incubator in her house to hatch peafowl eggs. “I had one special male peacock who was a pet,” she recalls. “My special male would follow me around all through my house. They [hatchlings] look to me like I’m their mother.” Roppel says she will not say that you cannot train peafowl but says most are “stand-offish. “The one I had that followed me around like a pet was part of a group of 22 peachicks, and he was the only one who did that,” she says. She adds, “Their lifespan is similar to owning a parrot. Zoos and rescues inherit a lot of unwanted peafowl, sadly.”
Peafowl are forest-dwelling birds and nest on the ground but roost in trees. Despite the male’s brilliant colors, they still “blend in” in trees at night. On Roppel’s farm, peafowl are penned in a roofed pen. “We have a roof and strong fencing, but owls and raccoons can still reach in and pull a peachick through the fence,” she explains. “Some people raise them in Quonset huts. They don’t eat as much in the summer due to heat. When it is really hot, they have to have fans.”
Peafowl have long been symbolic figures that span cultures and religions. It is thought that Phoenicians first brought peafowl to what is now Egypt and Syria about 3,000 years ago. In India, flocks of them are sometimes seen around temples or living among bushes near riverbanks. They are also “biblical birds.” In the Old Testament of the Bible, they were first mentioned in the context of King Solomon’s grandeur and wealth associated with the opulence of his reign. I Kings 10:22 records, “For the king had the ships of Tarshish at sea with Hiram’s fleet, and once every three years the ships of Tarshish would arrive bearing gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks.” Bible scholars say Tarshish was probably a district on the coast of India or in Ceylon. Alexander the Great introduced them to Greece and forbade people to harm them. In Roman times, they were cooked and served for dinner at lavish banquets. Domesticated peafowl lived across Europe by the fourteenth century but were mainly the property of wealthy “elites” like royalty and other wealthy citizens who prized them as decorative birds that wandered around palaces and private mansions. In Christian art and symbolism, they have represented eternal life and resurrection. The peacock’s eye-like feather pattern has been interpreted as the all-seeing “eye of God.”
The Roppels also raise alpacas in addition to peafowl at their King George farm, which Michelle Roppel describes as “an old cattle farm on a hill.” They acquired their original peafowl in 2010 for their Virginia farm and sell both peachicks and adults, as well as feathers to crafters. They do not provide public tours due to avian flu, but those interested in buying or breeding peafowl can call ahead to arrange a visit. They also take peacocks to weddings, where the majestic birds are popular additions to wedding party photography.
Despite a want to share them with the world, she cautions that those entertaining the idea of getting peafowl need to first make sure they can actually have them where they live, as some communities prohibit them. In acknowledging their loud calls, she points out their farm is in a very rural area on 26 acres, buffering the birds’ noise. She explains, “Just this week someone sent me an inquiry [about buying a peacock]. The first thing I asked was, are you in a HOA [community]? People see them and their trains and want one. But what about your neighbors?” She also cautions: “There are places in Georgia or Florida where people have [released them into the wild] and let them go. Some localities consider them nuisance birds,” Roppel says.
Muse or not, peafowl have been providing both companionship and beauty for literally thousands of years, and it appears that their attraction for people shows no sign of ending.
For more information about Tree Frog Farm, LLC and its livestock: alpaca@roppel.com or call (540) 775-0348.