Wing clipping?

[red horse ranch]

I am in the process of getting a 5 month old peahen to keep my 6 month old cock company. I will be keeping the two of them in a 35 sq ft coop. There is a large pen attached with 6' chicken wire fence but I'm not sure if she will stay in it or fly out. He has never tried to fly out but he has always lived here. Is wing clipping an option? Should I put them together immediately or let them get used to each other thru the fence for a few days?

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Hello! Congrats on the new member of your pea family!

First of all, how big is the pen? Peas really need a minimum of 100 square feet per pea to be healthy and happy.

A 6-foot fence is not a barrier when it comes to peas. Most peapeople here frown on wing clipping, because it makes peas very vulnerable to predators - their only defense is to fly! Your best bet is probably to cover your pen with netting. If you do some searching here, you'll find tips about the best kinds of netting and how to install it.

The most important reason to keep them separated is probably health - if the new peagirl is sick, you don't want her to pass something to your peafella. So quarantining her is a good idea, and the Pea Health Experts here can probably give you better input than I can on this process.

And, by the way...we love pictures...

 

[red horse ranch]

Thanks so much for the response. I will be driving a 120 mile round trip to get her tomorrow.

I think you are right about keeping her separate for a while. Bringing in a disease has worried me also. I have over 40 chickens and 10 guineas in addition to the cock. All of them free range including the peacock. The peahen will be free ranging once she bonds with the cock and I feel sure that she just won't fly away. All of my birds are always locked in at night.

The pen is 16' x 16' so I think they will be fine as far as space once I start letting them out of the small coop. They may be confined for a while tho since the temp will be zero to single digits for at least most of this coming week. I do have a covered pen attached to my chicken house but I think she needs quarantined for a while before moving her in with all my other birds.

I'm looking forward to sharing pictures as soon as I can.

 

[KsKingBee]

16 x 16 = 256 square feet, just right for a pair of peafowl. If you are free ranging it doesn't matter the size of the pen, but what you have is fine if it is covered. Owls will be hunting heavy from now until March as this is the time they are raising their young.

Most of us use a nylon netting for covering our pens, the optimal size is 2 inch heavy knotted. The best pricing comes from 3T Products.

http://www.3tproducts.com/shop/pc/home.asp

Even if you do wing clip they can still jump up six feet easily.

 

[barkerg]

I am in the process of getting a 5 month old peahen to keep my 6 month old cock company. I will be keeping the two of them in a 35 sq ft coop. There is a large pen attached with 6' chicken wire fence but I'm not sure if she will stay in it or fly out. He has never tried to fly out but he has always lived here. Is wing clipping an option? Should I put them together immediately or let them get used to each other thru the fence for a few days? :/

If your fence wont hold water, then it will likely not hold peafowl. As a caveat to what @KsKingBee mentioned, peafowl can jump very high without the use of wings. Consider this when contemplating the clipping of peafowl wings, the rooster already has a difficult task when trading with the hen, he must keep his train in full fan, latch onto her wings while using his flight feathers on the ground for balance. Clipping his wings can hurt fertility, see pic below from Bobs Green Peafowl on FB.

Gerald Barker

 

[red horse ranch]

That's an awesome picture! I never thought about the breeding part. Since my two are just 5 and 6 months old I won't have to worry about the breeding part for a long time. But I've never clipped a birds wings and I don't think I'll start now. It's definitely right about their ability to get over a 6" fence. The new hen proved it the first time I let her out of the coop. She didn't go far tho. She just stood behind the pen calling until I rescued her. Instead of going back into the coop tho she went into the main henhouse and got up on a perch. So I just moved the male over there too. We are having single temperature weather this week with blowing snow so all my birds are staying confined in the henhouse and the new girl is learning to mingle with the flock. No Problems so far.

I took these pictures before she flew out of the pen. I guess she wasn't too impressed with her new fella or the coop!

 

[barkerg]

That's an awesome picture! I never thought about the breeding part. Since my two are just 5 and 6 months old I won't have to worry about the breeding part for a long time. But I've never clipped a birds wings and I don't think I'll start now. It's definitely right about their ability to get over a 6" fence. The new hen proved it the first time I let her out of the coop. She didn't go far tho. She just stood behind the pen calling until I rescued her. Instead of going back into the coop tho she went into the main henhouse and got up on a perch. So I just moved the male over there too. We are having single temperature weather this week with blowing snow so all my birds are staying confined in the henhouse and the new girl is learning to mingle with the flock. No Problems so far. I took these pictures before she flew out of the pen. I guess she wasn't too impressed with her new fella or the coop!

Very nice, you are doing a fantastic job,

. Gerald Barker