Martha Stewart ‘Spends at Least an Hour a Day’ Talking to Her Peacocks: They’re ‘Like Children’

Martha Stewart‘s pet peacocks mean the world to her, so she’s spoiling them to ludicrous degrees while worrying about their ongoing safety.

The lifestyle guru, 83, was left devastated two years ago when six of her feathered friends were savagely killed by a group of coyotes hanging around her Connecticut compound.

“RIP beautiful BlueBoy,” she wrote on Instagram in July 2022, alongside a video of one of the birds. “The coyotes came in broad daylight and devoured him and five others including the magnificent White Boy.”

She asked followers, “Any solutions for getting rid of six large and aggressive coyotes who have expensive tastes when it comes to poultry?? we are no longer allowing the peafowl out of their yard, we are enclosing the top of their large yard with wire fencing etc.”

A source exclusively tells Closer, “It was heartbreaking to lose so many of her babies — they really are her best friends — but her precious peacocks have a sturdier enclosure now, and she has guards watching them to make sure the coyotes don’t get close.”

While it was a huge blow to lose half a dozen peacocks in an instant, the insider reveals, “She breeds them, so the numbers keep growing.”

After all, she has a very special relationship with them. “Every single peacock is different. Some are shyer than others. Some are much bolder,” she told People in August 2023. “Some are much more prone to ruffling their feathers, fanning their tails. I have a mixture of males and females. And I breed them. They’re all bred in my incubator.”

“They’re very friendly birds — and they talk to me,” she added. “Whenever I go by their enclosure, I talk to them. I go, ‘Awk, awk.’ I make their noise, and they talk right back to me. Everybody laughs when they see that because I’m the only one they respond to.”

Not much has changed over the last year. According to Closer‘s source, “She spends at least an hour a day talking to them. She says they only talk to her, and she even professes to know what they’re saying.”

And they deserve only the highest quality when it comes to their diet. “She feeds them the best vegetables from her garden and even whips up homemade meals in her chef’s kitchen,” says the source, adding that the chef and cookbook author gives them “pure, filtered water” to drink.

Adds the insider, “She may not be faring so well in the romance stakes, but her peacocks are like children to her and the most magnificent creatures and better than any relationship.”

Earlier this month, Martha rang in her 83rd birthday on August 3 alongside another one of her BFFs. She and Snoop Dogg attended the equestrian team dressage event at the 2024 Summer Olympics.

The longtime pals matched in riding helmets, jackets, white pants and sunglasses. Martha said on the Today show that Snoop, 52, asked her to attend the event. “Snoop called me, and he knows I love horses,” she said, adding: “He’s a little fearful of horses.”