Over the time I have been hanging out with Peacock and Peahen I have grown to discover a critical fact... They love their food. Coupled with my untempered curiosity I have been able to learn a lot of what peafowl will, and will not eat. Oh, and most significantly what they will bite your hand off for.
I should add at this point that I love peacocks, and certainly don't aim to upset their tummies.
Unsurprising likes and dislikes (they're supposed to like this stuff - I think)
They love their daily seed feed and unfortunatetly they will also happily eat some very nice plants. Plus, they are birds, so like ducks they will eat bread, by the tonne load. Fruit of nearly any description, including things inedible to people like pineapple core, has been demolished.
Surprising likes and dislikes (to my mind anyway)
I have given them bits of aubergine parmigiana, which I thought they might turn their noses up at, but didn't.... And they will also eat chips, which is funny if they are really long as they will sometimes try to swallow them in one instead of pecking them into smaller pieces. I've also tried small amounts of lemon curd and pork pate which they seemed look at a couple of times before chomping on. An overly enthusiastic home pizza making night produced the worst pizza ever, whih none of us ate. It consisted of chilli relish topped with remnants of chicken curry, olives and crisps. The peacocks had a small slice each, for a week and their were no complaints. Very surprising to me that they will eat chicken, though when its given on its own, they look it up and down at least 5 times before getting stuck in.
Interestingly they haven't eaten any of our leftover steak, and there has been quite a bit of it. Plus they don't seem to be mad on avocado. Who knew?
Peafowl don't like alcohol. I tried to fob off some leftover Strongbow cider on them - to no avail. I then got curious about what they drank overall - apart from water collected in the dish beneath one of the large plant pots in the garden. I discovered they don't like tea or milk and then got bored, food is much more interesting.
Watch out for your fingers!
The number one I've found is chocolate. Particularly soft centres, as long as you crush the chocolate a little. If you don't crush harder foods, their beaks get stuck on the first pounce and they will walk around shaking their heads until the food drops off. Very cute but a bit mean. The other thing they will kill for almost as much is cheese. Any kind, and by God I've given them all sorts, they adore it. I have to be sure to fling it to them before they see me with it or else my fingers can end up taking a proper pecking. They don't mind jumping to reach the food in my hand either so I have to watch myself! However, I hadn't ever seen them run flat out for anything until I started throwing them breaded garlic mushrooms. Neither peacock nor peahen will take the chance that the other won't be hanging around to grab whatever morsels they don't down in one. Thus, each tends to grab the breaded mushroom flung to them and run to safety before gobbling commences. So sweet!