UK Flamingo Husbandry

I am aware of the downsides to aviaries for flamingos and what may direct a decision in animal management elsewhere.

I just deem these downsides ad minorem in comparison with the downsides of pinioned or wing-clipped flamingos in free-standing bird exhibits.
 
I could not agree more with the statements with regaurds to moving slimbridges andean flamingos but the mention of them having all their birds pinoned is very worrying if their andeans are they many not breed ever again!
 
FBBird said:
, [3] they can't fly into netting and get injured or entangled and [4] every so often a squirrel chews a hole in flexible netting and lets a lot of birds out. .
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These last two minussen can be taken care of quite easily. The first is mainly an issue of decent construction and can be taken care off relatively easy by chosing the right netting and pay attention on how you fix it. The second is basic management although you need the squirrel to make quite a whole for a flamingo to get through (and usually a squirrel will just cheq a whole big enough for itself to get in an out the enclosure).

In the end it is basicly the question do zoos want to invest in Flamingo's and are they willing to go for breeding results. And as always this is partly a decission based on finances and space.
 
Free flight flamingos

I just wanted to know if anybody has ever tried keeping free flying flamingos. I know people have done it with an array of other birds around the world but I've never heard of it done with flamingos
 
Kieranjpball said:
I just wanted to know if anybody has ever tried keeping free flying flamingos. I know people have done it with an array of other birds around the world but I've never heard of it done with flamingos
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Some of Hillsides are free flying when they get the chance,but they never go far before either returning or being collected.
 
I believe there are some trained/imprinted [Lesser?] flamingos being used in a free-flying demo some where. As for actually trying to hold them in a free-flying living situation, I don't think it has been done. I believe the usual scenario is unpinioned wing-clipped flamingo moults out cut primaries, grows new ones, flies away. Home-bred birds do the same as soon as they can fly. The famouse Hialeah racetrack flock of Caribbeans started off as a pinioned flock, and I believe they started leaving the young full-winged. Eventually, as I understand it, the whole lot [minus any original pinioned birds] took themselves back to the Caribbean.
In the bad old importing days, occasional flamingos that had flown away from collections lived wild in the UK, often for several years. I remeber seeing three together on the Chesil Fleet [saltwater coastal lagoon in Dorset famous for the Abbotsbury Swannery] back in the 70s. One of these [Chilean I think] got too close to a nesting swan and was killed, and a single Caribbean [well enough known to be called 'Dilly' by the swanherd] used to commute between Abbotsbury and Poole Park [some 35 miles away] over many years before disappearing. Don't know what happened to the third bird. In the past few years a single Chilean has flown into the swannery, and was eventually re-homed at Slimbridge.
 
Yes I remember seeing the chilean flamingo in a newspaper review of the swannery,but the writer did not seem to think this was odd and simply said their was also a beautiful flamingo! Interesting about the hillside flock that some can fly yet return no wonder they are breeding if they are allowed to do that!
I am surprised the lessers held at flamingo park or seaview encounter have not bred as they are kept in a avairy and their is about 34 of them I think plus they do very well with the chileans.
 
FBBird said:
I believe there are some trained/imprinted [Lesser?] flamingos being used in a free-flying demo some where. As for actually trying to hold them in a free-flying living situation, I don't think it has been done. I believe the usual scenario is unpinioned wing-clipped flamingo moults out cut primaries, grows new ones, flies away. Home-bred birds do the same as soon as they can fly. The famouse Hialeah racetrack flock of Caribbeans started off as a pinioned flock, and I believe they started leaving the young full-winged. Eventually, as I understand it, the whole lot [minus any original pinioned birds] took themselves back to the Caribbean.
In the bad old importing days, occasional flamingos that had flown away from collections lived wild in the UK, often for several years. I remeber seeing three together on the Chesil Fleet [saltwater coastal lagoon in Dorset famous for the Abbotsbury Swannery] back in the 70s. One of these [Chilean I think] got too close to a nesting swan and was killed, and a single Caribbean [well enough known to be called 'Dilly' by the swanherd] used to commute between Abbotsbury and Poole Park [some 35 miles away] over many years before disappearing. Don't know what happened to the third bird. In the past few years a single Chilean has flown into the swannery, and was eventually re-homed at Slimbridge.
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I've just had a look at the Hialeah flamingos and they're all still alive and flying. There are more than 300 birds there and if you take a look on youtube you can see some videos of them
 
Jana said:
Genetical diversity of captive populations
This theme was not mentioned so far, but should get a target too. So far I know, AZA runs 4 detailed studbooks for all their flamingo species.
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Just to mention, extra-pair copulations and egg dumping are making it a bit complicated in a colonial bird. I read somebody supposing, that in pinioned flocks, few flamingo males which are still capable of reproducing father eggs in other pairs.

But, surely, even imperfect studbook is valuable.

Basel zoo suggested that bringing and exchanging females into the few breeding colonies is a good way to raise genetic diversity. Such non-breeding females apparently usually start breeding in a right flock.
 
Sorry, was wrong about Hialeah; so, if you've got the got the right conditions, you can hold free-flying flamingos. Do I understand from the above, that some of Blackbrook's are free-flying? If so, that's rather wonderful, and opens up all sorts of possibilities.
 
I believe the carribeans breed well at the race track but often abandon eggs such eggs are then collected by certain zoos and sent to other US zoos.
Is their also a wild flock of mixed flamingos in germany?
 
Arthur Parkinson -- I understand there is a feral flock in Germany, comprising Chilean, Greater and Caribbean, at least some of which are breeding.
 
thanks for that,thats very interesting just a shame they are not a pure flock of chileans rather than being a mixture of greater,carribean and chilean and hybrids and rather worrying that on the link it says they mix with wild greaters in the winter.
amzing how it says on the link just 4 chileans began to nest at first
 
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