Not only did the husband end up falling in love with the peacock (named Chief), they ended up getting a chicken as well!

That ended more wholesome than I had feared and I’m glad

exotic animals should not be pets 🙃

Peacocks are domestic and extremely common ya city bitch

when I lived in California as a teen there was gang of peacocks that beat the living shit out of my sisters cat

Also if it’s being sold like that it’s more likely the animal cant go back into the wild and would need a person to take care of it. Birds that are rehabilitated mostly can never be wild again as they easily imprint on humans 🤷‍♀️

@senil888 @greenleafsama it… It’s not wild OR exotic. They are domestic game fowl in the US, the same as turkeys and pheasants. They’re farm animals at this point. Like chickens, just with different care needs. They’re sold at farm auctions and game bird swap meets alongside all other kinds of domestic fowl, and most of them aren’t even that expensive, like you can get a plain blue like that for $50-100 around here, which is the same amount I paid I adopt my cat. They’ve been bred so domestically and for so long that there are literally hundreds of color/pattern mutation combos. Do you even know purple peafowl actually exist? Bronze? Opal? Silver pied? Even most of those won’t put you out by more than $200 if you’re just looking for a pet. People pay more for dogs. Rats, mice, rabbits, and guinea pigs are considered “exotics” by vets, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t domesticated them.

Chief was almost certainly being sold because someone hatched him on purpose from their pets. Chances are good that if these two have a “local” livestock auction, they live in some approximation of “the country” rather than the city, so I’m guessing they are perfectly capable of keeping both of these birds just fine. Whether they do or not I don’t know, but even if they don’t, it wouldn’t change the fact that plenty of people on farms do.

Like me, for example. Here’s one of my purple kids looking for some attention. That’s their pen in the background. He was out free ranging with my chickens.

One of my ladies begging for a treat:

Here’s our pens:

Here’s a baby I was babysitting for a friend down the road that has them. Two of my other neighbors have them too.

Like. They’re galliformes, the same as chickens, the same as turkeys. They look fancy but I promise you, they’re not.

They just shiny! That’s it! No FOWL done!

Interesting and all well and good for the US of A but… You know the world keeps going past American shores and in other English speaking countries these little guys are certainly exotic and should not and rarely are pets outside of rehabilitation centres/zoos… So… Everyone is right?

@axendil Actually they’re domestically kept on every major continent except antartica, including MOST english-speaking countries and also a LOT of non-english-speaking countries so…. no, they’re really not just a “US of A” thing.

They were originally domesticated in Asia/SE Asia, not the US, and they’re still kept there. Australia has really strict no-import laws so they’re doing the best they can with colors and patterns down there (last I heard they have pied, white, cameo, and I think BS? maybe Steel, and I’m PRETTY sure they managed to get green imports to make spaldings at some point) but they definitely keep them on farms there too. Europe has a really beautiful morph called EU violet that is SO much bolder than the US purples, but we’re having a difficult time getting them over here since it’s a few thousand dollars to ship w/ the vet work, but people are doing it. Germany has a morph just started up called Elfenbien that is a mutation of a mutation, something Went Wonky in the opal mutation and caused a sex-link blackshoulder pattern to appear, but since the original breeder doesn’t know what exactly is going on yet, he’s not really spreading them to the other breeders in the area yet. I belong to several peafowl groups online and I regularly see posts from Russian, African, and Brazilian breeders, and just this weekend I had a long discussion with someone in Scotland who was lamenting not having purples yet and I got to introduce her to another Scottish breeder who has EU violet, and show pics of the differences. They’re considered domestic fowl in England, and kept on farms. I’ve seen fewer Canadian breeders/keepers, possibly because it’s so cold up there they don’t fare well, but I definitely have seen them there too.

BUT LIKE lol it’s not a USA Only thing for them to be kept on farms or as pets, so like, maybe hop down off that high horse until you know what you’re talking about? Also the dude and his wife in question are from the USA anyway so that’s where the debate is taking place?