Displaying Pheasants and Tragopans outdoor in snow days

StellarChaser

StellarChaser

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
I know many Pheasants and Trogopans species are hardy in cold temperatures since their natural habitats have harsh winters, but zoos may worry about frostbites. Do you guys see any zoos display pheasants and tragopans outdoors when it is snowy days with temperatures below 0℃?
 
I've seen golden pheasants out and about in the snow here in Denmark, and they seem to do perfectly fine. There are also town park aviaries that house Reeves's, silver and Swinhoe's pheasants without any indoor exhibits, only some shrub and/or porch roofs in the outdoor exhibit. The only tragopans I've seen in Denmark did have heated indoor exhibits.
 
Hvedekorn said:
I've seen golden pheasants out and about in the snow here in Denmark, and they seem to do perfectly fine. There are also town park aviaries that house Reeves's, silver and Swinhoe's pheasants without any indoor exhibits, only some shrub and/or porch roofs in the outdoor exhibit. The only tragopans I've seen in Denmark did have heated indoor exhibits.
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Other than the tragopans, those others are from cold climates aren't they? This wasn't in a zoo setting but I did once see a big flock of peafowl on a farm in -20F (-29C) walking around foraging like it was summer. I wonder if they live in high elevations in India as well as jungles.
 
elefante said:
Other than the tragopans, those others are from cold climates aren't they? This wasn't in a zoo setting but I did once see a big flock of peafowl on a farm in -20F (-29C) walking around foraging like it was summer. I wonder if they live in high elevations in India as well as jungles.
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Toronto Zoo also has Indian Peacocks displayed outdoors during winter, but a few years ago when Toronto Zoo had Ring-necked Pheasant, I never saw it on winter days (now they don't have Ring-necked Pheasant anymore)
 
elefante said:
Other than the tragopans, those others are from cold climates aren't they? This wasn't in a zoo setting but I did once see a big flock of peafowl on a farm in -20F (-29C) walking around foraging like it was summer. I wonder if they live in high elevations in India as well as jungles.
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Silver pheasants live in Southeast Asia, and Swinhoe's live in Taiwan where I'm pretty sure the average temperature is a lot higher than in Denmark, though the winters at high altitudes may be equally cold. As far as I know, the majority of fowl species that are common in captivity are very cold-hardy. Guineafowl and, as you mention, peafowl do well in temperate climates.
 
Tragopans are still hardy so long as shelter is provided - Temmincks is usually good down to 0 F so long as heat is provided below freezing. Cabot's is reputably a bit hardier even. Typically most of the subtropical and temperate pheasants are pretty hardy so long as windbreaks and shelters are provided.
 
I've seen both Ring-necked and Golden Pheasants displayed outdoors in temperatures lower than 0 F.
 
Really exhibit design is also a big part of the decision when it comes to birds outside in the winter. A lot don't do well with snow, especially when the snowfall is significant, as this can be dangerous to feet/legs of birds- with issues such as frostbite. A lot of pheasants (and other birds and animals for that matter) can be acclimated to colder temperatures than one may expect, as long as supplemental heating is provided and there is protection against the elements (snow, rain, wind). Plenty of the pheasant aviaries I've seen have been designed in ways that allow a good deal of protection against the elements, allowing them to be kept out at colder temperatures than they may be able to handle in the wild. Truthfully, it surprises me that more cold climate zoos don't have more "filler aviaries" with pheasants, magpies, owls, etc., as they're rather simple/cheap exhibits to build/maintain, and having an increased number of exhibits can make visits more engaging and last longer- especially in the winter when most zoos have at least some animals go off exhibit. Compensate for that by building more exhibits for cold-hardy small animals!!
 
Neil chace said:
Plenty of the pheasant aviaries I've seen have been designed in ways that allow a good deal of protection against the elements, allowing them to be kept out at colder temperatures than they may be able to handle in the wild.
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Could you provide any picture examples of good pheasant aviaries?
 
I've kept Temminck's tragopan, blue-eared pheasant, Himalayan monal, and those two staples of the zoo world, the golden pheasant and Lady Amherst's pheasant, outdoors in the mid-Atlantic year round without heated shelter without issue. If I were designing the enclosures, I probably would have planned an indoor component. My boss used to pride himself on keeping animals outdoors for as long as possible. My new philosophy is, "They may survive, but they might not like it, so give the bird a damn heat lamp already, will you?"
 
The *vast* majority of pheasants in North American aviculture, barring the polyplectron, argus, junglefowl, and a few others, are incredibly winter hearty.

I live in western Canada, and we routinely get temperatures of -30 Celsius for weeks at a time around here. One of Canada‘s largest private exotic pheasant breeders lives about 15 to 20 minutes away from me, and she keeps all of her birds outdoors, totally unheated, year-round, with their only shelter being a little three sided lean-to, but the majority of the birds don’t use them, they either just sleep on perches, or hunker down in the snow. She maintains 15 different species. I’ve been to her place before and seen her set up, and her birds are all in immaculate condition. Strong, healthy, and beautiful plumage! They also breed prolifically for her.

Personally, I’ve kept Golden, Amherst, Mikado, Humes, Temmincks Tragopan, Blue Eared, Impeyan, and Silver pheasants, and they were all housed outdoors without any supplemental heat or shelter, and did totally fine, even during the winter. However on the same note, I’ve also had Argus, three different peacock pheasant species, and Edwards pheasants, and they all definitely require supplemental heat to varying degrees in the winter.

Generally speaking, as long as the birds are able to get out of the wind and completely cover up their feet while perched, and have a good quality diet, they can stand absolutely miserable weather with ease.

As a general rule, in most public zoos, you would find the birds have indoor access during extreme temperatures, but that’s not necessarily because birds require it, per say, and usually more so just because of facility preference/requirements.
 
At a guess species like peacock pheasants would need heated shelters, but the mountain species like Golden or Tragopans would be OK in most temperate climates - they certainly do OK in the UK. One thing to remember though is that many live in fairly dense cover - Goldens have a strong preference for bamboo thickets in the wild as I understand it - so they would have a lot of shelter from wind and rain in their natural habitat.
 
Question about displaying Anseriformes during winter times, I know many Anseriformes species are very cold tolerant, I often see swans, ducks and geese in Ontario Lake in January. While ponds in the zoos often are frozen during winter so the zoos choose not to exhibit Anseriformes. Do you see any examples the zoos having Anseriformes displayed outdoors when the temperature is below 0 degree of Celcius? One of my friends just visited the Bronx today and he saw Chinese Mergansers, Stiff-tailed Ducks and Wood Ducks in outdoor pond.
 
StellarChaser said:
Question about displaying Anseriformes during winter times, I know many Anseriformes species are very cold tolerant, I often see swans, ducks and geese in Ontario Lake in January. While ponds in the zoos often are frozen during winter so the zoos choose not to exhibit Anseriformes. Do you see any examples the zoos having Anseriformes displayed outdoors when the temperature is below 0 degree of Celcius? One of my friends just visited the Bronx today and he saw Chinese Mergansers, Stiff-tailed Ducks and Wood Ducks in outdoor pond.
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Virtually any species of migratory waterfowl that naturally breeds in North America or Eurasia will be *incredibly* cold weather tolerant, even more so than most pheasants. The onus to this being that they NEED open water, for two reasons. Both to maintain feather condition (and therefore insulation) and also for some to keep their feet from freezing. This is a little bit more flexible depending on the species, but most also require the open water to feed throughout the winter as well, but that is more for wild birds. Temperate or tropical climate waterfowl tend to be quite a bit more cold tolerant than other birds that live in the same region, and many can actually tolerate cold temperatures quite well, with notable outliers being whistling ducks, pygmy geese, coscoroba swans and a few others.

In terms of zoo displays, pretty much any zoo in Canada or the northern US with outdoor waterfowl will display them in freezing temperatures outdoors at some point during the year, even if it’s just for short periods of time.
 
Great Argus said:
Coscoroba surprises me given their range, given they're year round on the Falklands even.
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The Falklands are not that cold, due to their oceanic location, minimum recorded temperature ever is -11 Celsius (12 Fahrenheit). Mean temperatures are above 30 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) for every month of the year...
 
Hyak_II said:
Temperate or tropical climate waterfowl tend to be quite a bit more cold tolerant than other birds that live in the same region, and many can actually tolerate cold temperatures quite well, with notable outliers being whistling ducks, pygmy geese, coscoroba swans and a few others.
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Coscoroba are actually fairly cold tolerant. Buttonwood Park Zoo keeps their pair outside year-round, and seeing as this is Massachusetts, it does get fairly cold. Whistling ducks and pygmy geese you are right though as being not cold tolerant. As long as there's moving water and access to shelter, Coscoroba can be kept out below freezing.
 
Mmm, actually on further review, while I won’t take back what I mentioned about them not being super cold tolerant, since they’re not relative to the northern swans, they also weren’t the best example. The Black Necked, Coscoroba, and Black swans can all tolerate freezing temperatures and snow for stretches of time when given access to open water, but I would still place their winter tolerance as less than birds such as hottentot and ringed teals. Honestly most of my experience with the swans is in private aviculture, and given how expensive and difficult they are to source where I live, we tend to treat them (the three southern species) extra delicately, lol.

Regardless, as I mentioned prior, the vast majority of waterfowl, even the ones that don’t handle cold very well, tend to be collectively a lot more cold tolerant than people would expect. Barring the Pygmy geese and compromised birds, even whistling ducks and most other such “delicate” species can generally handle short dips below freezing as long as they have access to water.
 
Ringed teal are also pretty cold hardy - I've seen them frequently kept outside year round without supplemental heat in the mid-Atlantic region, including during some brutal weather. Their range dips into some colder parts of South America, albeit not all the way down to Tierra del Fuego - I think a lot of zoo folks think of them as being more tropical because they're such a standard species in Amazon exhibits. That being said, as I said with some of the pheasants, they may survive the bitter cold, but that doesn't mean it's the best for them
 
Aardwolf said:
Ringed teal are also pretty cold hardy - I've seen them frequently kept outside year round without supplemental heat in the mid-Atlantic region, including during some brutal weather. Their range dips into some colder parts of South America, albeit not all the way down to Tierra del Fuego - I think a lot of zoo folks think of them as being more tropical because they're such a standard species in Amazon exhibits. That being said, as I said with some of the pheasants, they may survive the bitter cold, but that doesn't mean it's the best for them
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Oh ringed teals are *incredibly* cold hearty! Which honestly surprises me considering their range, I wouldn’t peg them as such. I worked with species for a few years, and while I did offer them indoor access for no other reason then I felt bad for them, they would usually still go outside to swim around on even the most bitingly cold of days!
 
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