Peacock neck feathers Peahen neck feathers
| Peacock | Peahen | |
|---|---|---|
| Neck | See the above photo. The neck feathers are ribbed looking and look more like fur than feathers. | See the above photo. The neck feathers are rounded and more stuck together than the peacock's neck feathers. The feathers look more like scales and the feathers closest to the breast are lined in a creme color. |
| Size | Taller and longer. | Shorter than the peacock. Lacks the long display train. |
| Display | Display with long tail coverts for a potential mate. | Also displays using shorter tail coverts and displays when excited, startled, or when trying to look threatening. |
| Wings | Barred wings or if blackshoulder a solid color wing. | Never will have barred wings. Solid brown wings normally. |
| Spurs | At the age of a year will be obvious bumps. At 2-3 years old will be well defined and pointed and will continue to grow. | Spurs grow slower. Spurs will normally be tiny or not even evident. Some peahens might have a little point to their spurs, but nothing compared to a peacock's spurs. |
| Back | Scale looking feathers that transition into train feathers. | Feathers on back do not resemble scales. They are rounded and all of them are brown. |
| Crest | Matches the neck color and is normally very vibrant. Crest feathers are normally perfectly lined up. | Not very vibrant and more faint in color. Not as perfect looking as the peacock's crest. |
| Face | Defined white areas of skin around the eyes. | Less defined white areas of skin. Normally the white marking over the eye is evident, but the one bellow the eye blends in with the white of the upper neck. |
White peafowl are some of the hardest peafowl to sex. Some of the above information in the table will help you sex white peafowl. The size, spurs, and train feathers are what I used to determine the sex of the three low % Spalding whites I raised. Peacocks are just about always taller than peahens and peacocks are quick to start growing their spurs. Finally what really told me Frosty was a male was the train feathers. Eventually the young peacock will get whispy tail coverts which are the beginings of a train. Peahens will not have whispy tail covert feathers like what a peacock has.
Spaldings anoy me because they vary in looks. Some spaldings look more like an India Blue, some look more like a green peafowl. for the Spaldings that are high % and resemble green peafowl, you can forget several of the differences in the table above for India Blue varieties because high % Spalding peacocks have scalled neck feathers, the peahens will be very similar in color and perhaps in height, etc. A main way to sex spaldings would probably be the train feathers and the spurs.
Since I do not own any I can't speak from first hand experiance, but from what I have learned is that often you can sex green peafowl by the face. The peahen will have a brown line going across the side of her face between the two skin patches and the male's line will be a dark blue/black. Green Peahens will have small flight feathers that have barring on them. Green Peacocks do not have markings on their flight feathers. Also, evidently green peahen crest feathers have more of a rounded end and are greener in color. The green peacock's crest feathers are more pointed at the ends and are blue in color.
