Should I get peafowl

[TurnipGreens]

Howdy y'all! On advice from a commenter from this thread, I am breaking my question up and addressing the questions about the breeds in their respective forums rather in the original conglomerate.

The ideal bird for me would be: hardy in both North Alabama hot summers and milder (but still cold) winters, excellent brooders and mothers, excellent foragers and predator-evaders, disease resistant, quiet, high layers (including throughout the year, cold and heat), trustworthy to return to the coop nightly and lay eggs in nesting boxes, not prone to wandering too far, not dumb, amiable to other flock members, amiable to me, a breed whose males defend their females well, a good source of meat and fat (for cooking), easily culled and processed by hand by one person, not prone to destroying gardens or vehicles, not prone to pooping on houses and such, and able to keep pest levels down.

Now, as noted in the original thread, some of these are essential for all birds to have to be included in the flock, but many are either preferable but not required or required only for a few breeds out of the flock to have. If you're interested in seeing which is which you can go to the original thread, but it isn't actually necessary information for this thread. Just tell me which of these criteria whichever breed(s) you have experience with passes or fails, along with any other notes, and I'll evaluate accordingly

To be clear, peafowl seem to fail most of my criteria while having few redeeming qualities (in terms of utility). I post here just to make sure I haven't picked up some wildly wrong view of them in my research haha.

 

[KsKingBee]

There are many variations in peafowl but there are no breeds. Your criteria is quite unrealistic although if you happen to develop such a bird the world will come knocking at your door.

 

[ThreeWillows]

Your criteria sound like they're developed for chickens. Peafowl aren't like chickens. The main difference is that they're a lot closer to their wild ancestors and not fully domesticated.

Peafowl are seasonal layers, so egg "production" isn't much of a factor. There's pretty much no meat on their bones, and so "processing" isn't a factor. They can fly and jump pretty high, so housing is (or should be) specialized and spacious. If allowed to roam, they can and will scratch paint on your (and your neighbors') cars. They're terribly prone to histomoniasis (blackhead) when young if they're kept in an area near chickens (I keep metronidazole on hand during the grow out period). They're not very cold hardy. So, yeah, if using chicken criteria, they're not what you want.

Why does anyone keep them?
They're beautiful.
They're valuable--fetching around $100 on average per bird in my area, more for fancy colors.
If hand-reared, they're friendly and somewhat trainable.
They live for 20 years if properly kept, so you don't have to replace them often.
Their eggs are huge, valuable, and delicious.
They're interesting--with unique behaviors.

I keep peafowl, chickens, ducks, and coturnix quail. My husband would gladly get rid of everything except the peafowl He says they're the only species here worth bothering with.