- Sep 23, 2014
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I completely agree with Dany on this one. And I feel quite strongly about this.
THESE ARE NOT CHICKENS !!!
Peafowl seem to me to have a highly developed social structure, and their calling and vocalizations are essential to their everyday communications. They "talk" to each other, and in some cases, also talk with their pea-brained humans through their vocalizations, much more so than a chicken.
Dany mentions reproduction... I have been reading everything I can dig up about mating seasons and peafowl reproduction, and even more so since I've been trying to solve the "why is my hen laying in the middle of the winter?" question. It's pretty clear that it happens at different times around the world, as is not necessarily linked to daylength. I'm beginning to believe that there are social aspects to the mating season and fertility that depend on complex factors and "signaling," including the male's vocalizations, which signal fertility and prompt the hen to initiate her laying cycle.
I've read all the posts in this thread, and I have visited the vet's website. Several things became clear to me when I did that. First, this is a vet who is freshly out of vet school. Second, this is a vet who has owned chickens, but has apparently never owned peafowl. Third, despite advertising for two years, this vet has still not performed this surgery on a peafowl, and apparently has no experience with them, other than believing them to be similar to chickens.
There's nothing wrong with chickens, but THESE ARE NOT CHICKENS
I feel it would irresponsible to begin experimenting with irreversible surgery on peafowl without understanding their social needs and having much more experience with the birds. I personally do not feel that a responsible pea owner would de-voice the birds.
We all make life choices. If the "noise" that the peas make as a part of what they do and how they function is too problematic, then make a choice that is better for the bird and let it live somewhere more appropriate. Carving out the bird's voice to make it a more convenient pet is in my view, a selfish choice and not healthy for the bird. There's more to health than simply physical appearance and continuing to breathe. We recently heard about a young pea who was so distraught over losing its chicken that it refused to eat, and cried until it passed. After watching how distraught my birds became when I moved their chickens to a different pen, I have no difficulty understanding that the young pea could easily die from emotional distress.
De-voicing a pea, in my view, would be a deliberate crippling of a pea for selfish reasons. I say this not just as a "pet" owner (since when is that a pejorative, anyway?), but also as someone who does understand breeding of livestock and poultry as a business. Just because someone might be interested in peas commercially does not mean that opens the door to mutilating them. This is not the same as gelding a horse or cutting a calf.
Don't try to re-design peafowl for someone's lifestyle convenience, especially without knowing a whole lot more about these birds and their social structure.
