To pinion or not.

[Chlidonias]

Does the wing clipping involve both wings? I don't know if my experience with farm chickens is applicable but I learned at a very young age about wing clipping. We kept our chickens in an open top enclosure with a coop to roost in at night. I was perhaps 10 years old when I learned the hard way that you only clip one wing. If you clip both wings the chickens will be flying around again in no time. Clip just one wing and they can't fly at all for quite a while.

I knew nothing about primary and secondary flight feathers. I would just catch a chicken with my "chicken catcher", take it over to the chopping block and, with a hatchet, chop off some of the feathers on the trailing edge of one wing. That would throw them out of whack for flying.

when wing-clipping you only clip the flight feathers from one wing, which unbalances the bird and it cannot fly properly. If both wings are clipped the bird can still fly (albeit not as well as when unclipped!). Usually the outermost few feathers of the clipped wing are left for the sake of appearances (when the wings are folded the wing looks complete). And the clipping is usually done with scissors rather than an axe!

 

[Al]

An interesting topic, one that I still have not made my mind up on! For those against pinioning how do you feel about large birds flamingos, pelicans etc that are kept in aviaries but can not fly due to lack of space? Are they any less stressed?

 

[IanRRobinson]

An interesting topic, one that I still have not made my mind up on! For those against pinioning how do you feel about large birds flamingos, pelicans etc that are kept in aviaries but can not fly due to lack of space? Are they any less stressed?

It needs a big, tall aviary for sure. I think the Pink-backed Pelicans at Longleat are kept roofed over. They're also kept so that visitors drive past rather than walk; don't know which is the bigger factor in their breeding successes. The only other free flight pelicans I've ever seen were at Flamingo Gardens in 1996, when the place was plainly on its death bed, and the birds looked horrible in what looked like converted stork accommodation.

 

[Pertinax]

Usually the outermost few feathers of the clipped wing are left for the sake of appearances (when the wings are folded the wing looks complete). And the clipping is usually done with scissors rather than an axe!

I think that still looks ugly. To feather clip neatly I used to cut just the primary feathers of one wing right back to the feathered edge,which then hide the cut quills. It does look a lot neater.

I do feel very uncomfortable about pinioning nowadays. But very large birds which soar on thermals, e.g. Pelicans, Vultures etc are little better off in covered aviaries I feel, as they can never fly/soar at great height in thermals in the manner they are equipped to do.

 

[Chlidonias]

An interesting topic, one that I still have not made my mind up on! For those against pinioning how do you feel about large birds flamingos, pelicans etc that are kept in aviaries but can not fly due to lack of space? Are they any less stressed?

I personally can't see the difference with birds like pelicans having them full-winged in aviaries where they don't have the room to fly anyway, and pinioning to give them vastly more room on a lake.

Storks and other wading birds I think are better off full-winged in huge aviaries because they nest in trees and can fly back and forth quite adequately even if they can't soar. I know often they are kept in paddocks and given laddered platforms for nesting but aviaries seem a much better life to me in this case.

Flamingoes I'm not sure about. If pinioned you can potentially have very large flocks which would be unrealistic in an aviary; but I have read that there is a higher incidence of clear eggs in pinioned birds because the males can't balance properly when mating. They certainly wouldn't have room to fly properly in even huge aviaries, so I'd say the benefit of space for larger flocks in an open enclosure outweighs the benefit of having them full-winged in smaller numbers in a more constrained environment.

Cranes are ground-nesters (unlike the aforementioned storks), so I'd go with pinioning or wing-clipping, again for considerations of living space for the birds.

For waterfowl I would have always said pinioning or wing-clipping, again for the amount of room one can then give them on lakes, but Pertinax's observations on keeping pinioned ducks himself gives me pause, so I stand unresolved on that one now....

Vultures in paddocks -- a definite no from me.

I have never kept or looked after pinioned birds, so none of my thoughts are based on personal experience.

 

[Pertinax]

For waterfowl I would have always said pinioning or wing-clipping, again for the amount of room one can then give them on lakes, but Pertinax's observations on keeping pinioned ducks himself gives me pause, so I stand unresolved on that one now....

I never thought pinioning was that stressful/harmful for Waterfowl until I kept some myself and observed them a lot more closely on a daily basis than one does when visiting other Collections. It was enough for me to decide not to keep them again, though obviously it is the only practical way to keep them on open water. Of course, kept in larger areas, e.g. on a large lake, they may be less stressed than in a smaller area as mine were.

 

[elefante]

I do also question if an aviary is suitable for birds like flamingos and pelicans. The only one I've seen with flamingos is in Omaha. There is a zoo in France that keeps vultures in a quarry covered with trees. Their wings are not clipped and they can fly a little bit but can't get enough speed to take off. They also interact with tourists. I saw in on Ultimate Zoo when that show was on.

 

[AnaheimZoo]

Yes it does. Birds very easily die of stress simply being caught, that's why breeders prefer to pinion them just once, as chicks.

Moebelle, there was a longish discussion about pinioning on this site before you joined. It answers most of your questions and I don't want to rewrite the thread.

Erm, I don't believe Moebelle has posted on this thread.

I don't know where I stand on what would be better for vultures. Does anyone know what Animal Kingdom does to their vultures in Kilimanjaro Safaris? A recall seeing a vulture perched up in a tree, but out in the open (The safari is on an open savanna for those of you who don't know). Are they free-flight? If so, how do they stay in the designated safari area?

What would be better for all Birds of Prey in general? You're talking birds who fly miles a day sometimes, soaring high in the air on thermals, confined to "small" spaces. Of course aviaries would be best, but even the largest of flight cages would be small compared to the open skies they fly across, don't you think?

 

[Jurek7]

Sorry, elefante...

Going back to earlier thread. The problem for pinioned long-legged birds is not flying around, but another activity: males cannot balance during mating. Between one third and half male flamingos in zoos are infertile.

Legs of birds of prey are simply not designed for long-distance walking. In nature they walk a few steps but fly any distance. So they can thrive and breed without soaring, but not when pinioned.

 

[AnaheimZoo]

In nature they walk a few steps but fly any distance. So they can thrive and breed without soaring, but not when pinioned

Ohhh. I always thought Birds of Prey cages were always too small... So long as they're enabled flight they are okay for the most part, correct?

 

[IanRRobinson]

Ohhh. I always thought Birds of Prey cages were always too small... So long as they're enabled flight they are okay for the most part, correct?

This is the old chestnut about the normal levels of activity for a predator, IMVHO. Many would point out that Golden Eagles, Lions and Nile Crocodiles are all distinguished by the fact that they'll only move when hunting- which is true.

You can make an exhibit as HUGE as possible but all the time the carnivore in question has its food served up to it on a plate (as it were) it will move as little as possible. Finding ways of solving that issue is the challenge for intelligent curators.

 

[Jurek7]

Ohhh. I always thought Birds of Prey cages were always too small... So long as they're enabled flight they are okay for the most part, correct?

It depends... For birds of prey flying, important is also how the aviary is designed. It should have perches at the sides not only in the middle, so the bird will fly between them. It should also have clear flying space. Apparently birds of prey are often over-afraid of narrow spaces, sharp corners, where they can hit something in flight.

And naturally, there is lots of other things besides flying space to make raptors happy.

 

[toucanwalk]

It is interesting to look at the success of flamingo flocks breeding wise the uk's most productive are a mix of fully winged and clipped/pinoned birds -

fully winged flocks include - flamingo park(seaview wildlife encounter) I believe these are fully winged,they breed most years.

Longleat - there chileans began laying with years of being introduced and seem to be
getting better year upon year - I'm not sure if they are now fully winged they were clipped when first introduced to the aviary.

WWT - all birds pinoned yet they seem to always have greater chicks at least hatching each year.There andean and james however rarely seem to breed yet the fully winged flock which is smaller at berlin zoo breeds often.

Chester - Breeds most years chilean and carribean all pinoned.

Perhaps the most important aspect is for the birds to feel secure enough to breed,however it is clear that males have better fertility when their primary feathers are clipped.

 

[IanRRobinson]

I could be talking off the top of my head, but I do wonder if flamingos are "wired" to breed every year anyway. They are long-lived birds where food availability varies from year to year, and flocks often fly in search of alternative breeding sites.

From what a keeper at Slimbridge said to me last year they think that the Andean flock are probably past breeding age. For both Andean and James' Flamingos cpative extinction looms I fear, unless more birds or eggs can be brought out from the wild.

 

[Jurek7]

From what a keeper at Slimbridge said to me last year they think that the Andean flock are probably past breeding age.

Off top of my head, Basel breeds its flamingos every year. Flamingos are also incredibly long-lived - Basel has flamingos breeding in their 40s and 50s or so. Some years ago they had a flamingo alive which arrived in 1930s. So unless Andean flamingos are shorter lived, age should not be a problem.

 

[Chlidonias]

in the back of my head is something I read a long time ago, probably in Kear's book "Flamingoes", about the flamingo species with longer wings (relative to body size) having worse breeding success when wing-clipped than those with relatively shorter wings, the reason being (in theory at least) that those birds lose a greater proportion of the wing length and are therefore less balanced when trying to mount females and they cannot mate properly. Does that sound right?

 

[felix]

sounds about right, mating is a fine art for birds to align their sexual orifices anyway without adding long limbs and unbalanced wings
have pinioned for years those water birds i didn't want to fly away
only removed the last 7 flight feathers though
helped them keep their balance and could evade a predator better
instead of doing back somersaults on the spot when startled

 

[AnaheimZoo]

Once again, does anyone know what Animal Kingdom does to their Kilimanjaro Safaris vultures? Does anyone have any information at all on that?

Even after hard research, I can't find anything that we don't already know about Kilimanjaro Safaris. Disney isn't that open with their information...

 

[elefante]

Once again, does anyone know what Animal Kingdom does to their Kilimanjaro Safaris vultures? Does anyone have any information at all on that?

Even after hard research, I can't find anything that we don't already know about Kilimanjaro Safaris. Disney isn't that open with their information...

Aren't those vultures black and turkey vultures? If that's the case they are probably just wild birds. I don't remember seeing any African vultures on that drive the two times I did it.

 

[AnaheimZoo]

Aren't those vultures black and turkey vultures? If that's the case they are probably just wild birds. I don't remember seeing any African vultures on that drive the two times I did it.

Ohp! You seem to be right on that one. I checked; I've only been able to see American black vultures so far. Thank you, as I swear I saw what looked like a lappet-faced vulture perched in a tree in a Kilimanjaro Safaris Youtube video. Guess not.