Jungle Fowl in Captivity

W

wensleydale

Well-Known Member
Are there any Zoo's with Jungle Fowl? By Jungle Fowl I mean members of the genera Gallus, including the Red Jungle Fowl that the Domestic Chicken is at least in part descended from.
 
Many. :)

Is there any particular species or region that you're interested in? Quite a few collections have more than one taxon on display.
 
In the Netherlands we have a zoo specialised in pheasants and relatives.
Until a few years ago they had all four species of junglefowl.
Unfortunaltely, they do not have green junglefowl anymore, but the
other species are still represented.
 
For your general area the Bronx Zoo keeps Green Junglefowl, Gallus varius, in World of Birds and the Central Park Zoo keeps Sri Lankan Junglefowl, Gallus lafayettii, in the Tisch's Children's Zoo last I checked.

~Thylo:cool:
 
JungleFowl, (I think) both Red and Sonnerat's, used to be kept at London Zoo in the North Bank Aviaries. Its been mentioned on here before that the crowing of the males was one of the signature sounds of the Zoo, along with calls of Fish eagle and the Sealions. Sadly all have gone now.

Whipsnade also had plenty of Junglefowl at liberty- there may still be some there.
 
In the late 1980-ties I took care for all 4 species at Weltvogelpark Walsrode but now-adays only the Red junglefowl is kept there.
 
Jungle Fowl.....

The tails on these look rather too upright to be pure RJF, also the combs are too big.
 
Both Red and Grey (Sonnerats) junglefowl are fairly widespread in private hands. Not sure of the purity though, especially for Red, as they naturally hybridise easily with domestic poultry
 
In Belgium and the Netherlands there is an organisation, Aviornis,
which tries to keep the (private kept) captive population of junglefowls,
as well as many other birds, pure and healthy.
 
Mr. Zootycoon said:
In Belgium and the Netherlands there is an organisation, Aviornis,
which tries to keep the (private kept) captive population of junglefowls,
as well as many other birds, pure and healthy.
Click to expand...

Neat. Are they harder to keep than domestic chickens or easier to keep or are they about equal? I know that the wild form of an animal species is often less docile than the domestic form, also that they often have different food requirements (e.g. won't eat a commercial diet, must be given insects and whatever else the species eats.) One of the main reasons that this interests me is that I keep a lot of wild forms of plants and I started wondering about the wild forms of domestic animals in private hands.
 
Junglefowl......

Red Junglefowl are completely weather hardy, but may be slightly more susceptible to disease than their domestic descendants. Both Whipsnade and Paignton Zoos maintained free ranging stock for many years. Paignton no longer keep them, and I am fairly certain Whipsnade no longer have them.
Grey (Sonneratt's) are more disease prone, but again cold hardy.
Both Green and Lafayette's (Sri Lankan/'Ceylon) need protection from frost.
Green are probably the most spectacular, Sri Lankan are very lovely but under rated.
 
Green are also sadly the rarest in Europe by a long shot - they are certainly the only one I have not seen.

One collection which held the full set of Junglefowl species in the mid-to-late 1990's which might surprise a lot of people who do not know the background to the collection is Hamerton Zoo, incidentally. Sadly they now do not hold any Junglefowl species.
 
Up until approximately 2008-2009 Knowsley Safari Park had Red Jungle Fowl, they were a good addition, one cockerel had three or four hens with him and each group had a small territory of their own, sadly I heard foxes wiped the population out very quickly.
 
Green Junglefowl are spectacularly beautiful when kept well, with a surprising range of vivid colours on the comb and wattle. They can also be quite prolific.
 
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