If you’ve ever raised birds before, you know that they are often fragile animals. Their diets matter a lot, and the wrong food at the wrong time can kill them. Obviously, anyone raising peacocks or any other birds doesn’t want them to come to harm, so feeding them the right foods and avoiding foods that are bad for them is critical.
Feeding your peacocks healthy food and feed designed for birds will help you get through those first few months where they tend to be a bit fragile. Once you get past that stage of their lives, then you don’t have to worry as much about what they eat.
Raising peacocks is a little like raising chickens. It’s the early stages that you have to worry about, after that they tend to take care of themselves.
Still, there are certain foods that you want to avoid to keep your peacocks or any peacocks you come across (like in a park or a zoo) as healthy as possible.
Here are 9 foods your peacocks should not eat to keep them in great shape.
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Candy
Perhaps a bit obvious to start, but you don’t ever want to feed a peacock candy. Treats that are high in sugar offer little in the way of nutrition for the birds. Feeding them candy will only make them abandon their regular diet and start depending more heavily on you for handouts.
Depending on the candy, it can also be a choking hazard for the birds. Hard candies can get stuck in their throats and kill them.
Processed Meat
Feeding meat to a peacock is ok. They’ll gobble it up quickly even though it may seem a bit weird to feed something like chicken to your peacocks.
However, you will want to stay away from heavily processed meats because they have a ton of salt, sugar, and chemicals inside of them that may harm the birds.
Chips
Chips are another food you’ll want to skip giving to your peacocks because they offer little to no nutritional value. It’s like eating calories with no benefits.
Chips taste great because they’re salty, fried, and have chemical flavoring. Your birds will love eating them, but they will like the chips so much to the point where they may start neglecting their regular feed and miss out on the vitamins and minerals they need.
Bread
Most people have fond memories of going to the park and feeding chunks of bread to the ducks, swans, and geese there. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s not exactly healthy for the birds.
The same goes for any peacocks that you come across. While it may be fun, the birds will start to depend on humans for their food (if they are wild). If they’re yours, feeding them bread every once in a while is ok. You just need to know that bread is another food that offers little in the way of nutritional value.
Avocado Plants
Avocado plant leaves have persin in them, a chemical that’s often fatal to birds. It becomes very acidic in the digestive system and can cause heart damage, weakness, and other health issues.
Thankfully, peacocks will know instinctively to avoid avocado plant leaves. If you do see a bird eating or pecking at any avocado plants on your property, you may want to fence the tree off or take other steps to make sure they don’t eat too many leaves.
Chocolate
Peacocks that are fully grown are heartier than smaller birds, for sure. However, feeding them chocolate can still make them sick.
You’ve probably heard that chocolate is bad for dogs, but it’s also toxic for birds. Avoid giving it to your peacocks or any wild birds you come across.
Pet Food
Your peacocks will love going after any cat or dog food that you put out into bowls. If your pet isn’t the kind to run over during mealtime and scarf everything up in seconds, then you may want to take some sort of action to prevent peacocks from eating their food.
While pet food isn’t necessarily bad for your peacocks, it could make your puppy or cat go hungry! Keep them away from your pet food so they’ll eat their own food instead.
Caffeine
It may be hard to feed your birds caffeine, but just make sure it’s not an ingredient in any food you give them. Caffeine can be very bad for peacocks and other birds because their bodies are more fragile and have difficulty handling the stimulant. You don’t want your birds to be over-excited either because they may start acting erratically.
Some Types of Fruit Seeds
For the most part, you can feed vegetables and fruits to peacocks without worry. However, some fruits have ingestible seeds that can cause upset stomachs or worse for your birds. Things like apple seeds have trace amounts of the poison cyanide in them.
Now, before you start panicking about whether there are any apple seeds in that fruit salad you gave your birds, you should know that serious adverse symptoms are unlikely. At worst, they will probably get an upset stomach or act a bit lackadaisical for a while. Nothing to become overly concerned with, just make sure there are no seeds in the fruit the next time you toss them an apple.
Adult birds are generally a breeze to raise. They’ll naturally avoid foods that are bad for them and gravitate towards healthy foods.
Feeding them any food that’s high in salt or sugar will affect their normal diet, though, so you will want to avoid giving them human food as much as possible. Let your peacocks eat healthy fruits and vegetables and feed designed specifically for them.
Sticking to this basic regimen will keep them in great shape and avoid any sicknesses. Have fun with your peacocks! These birds are a fantastic addition to any flock or farm!