# What Do Peacocks Eat?

> What peacocks eat: Omnivore, foraging style, and seasonal shifts in Forest, farmland, and scrub of South Asia.

- **Species:** Peacock (*Pavo cristatus*)
- **Conservation status:** Least Concern
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Habitat:** Forest, farmland, and scrub of South Asia
- **Lifespan:** 15–20 years
- **Top speed:** Up to 16 km/h (10 mph) on the ground
- **Canonical HTML:** https://globalanimalguide.org/animals/peacock/what-do-peacock-eat/
- **Parent profile:** https://globalanimalguide.org/animals/peacock/
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-07-16

## Quick answer

The peacock is the male of the peafowl, best known for its spectacular train of iridescent, eye-spotted feathers, which it fans out to attract females. The most familiar species, the Indian peafowl, is native to South Asia. The train can make up more than 60% of the bird's length, and despite its size the peacock can still fly. Peafowl typically live around 15 to 20 years.

## Who should skip this page

Skip this if you need a captive feeding plan from a veterinarian. This page is wild diet, not a pet-care sheet.

## Peacock or peafowl?

Strictly speaking, only the male is a peacock; the female is a peahen, and together they are peafowl. The brilliant fan is not the tail itself but greatly elongated upper-tail covert feathers, supported from behind by the real, shorter tail when raised in display.

## Help protect the Peacock

Even familiar animals lose ground as wild habitat keeps shrinking worldwide.

[Donate to wildlife protection](https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/donate/)

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Source: Global Animal Guide (https://globalanimalguide.org/animals/peacock/what-do-peacock-eat/). Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0 — free for non-commercial reuse with attribution.