wing pinioning

[chasing ducks]

I have 2 muscovy ducklings, a dozen muscovy eggs in the incubator, 3 call eggs in the incubator and 2 buff geese coming tomorrow, as far as I know, they can all fly, right? My ducks have a fenced day area (because of predators they go into their house at night) but the fence is only 3 ft. high because none of my other ducks fly. Is there a safe way to pinion their wings? Or should I see about finding an aviary vet? I am not sure there is one anywhere near me.

 

[chickboss]

Is clipping an option? It's easy. I'll see what I can find on pinioning in one of my books....

 

[jujubean99]

I am by far not an expert, but isn't pinioning painful for the birds? If pinioning is necessary, I would reccomend taking them to the vet to have it surgically removed so they don't have to suffer.

 

[chickboss]

This is all I've got and it pertains to turkeys. Taken from Raising Poultry the Modern Way, by Leonard S. Mercia:

"Wing notching, or the removal of the end segment of one wing with a debeaker, is another method sometimes used to prevent flying on range. Wing notching can be done with an electric debeaker from day of age up to 10 days of age. Wing clipping and wing notching are not used as much as they once were because of injuries resulting when the birds attempt to fly. This may cause carcass bruises and detract from the dressed appearance."

A general internet search may pull up more information for you. Personally, I like to have options, so I would clip rather than pinion.

 

[1lpoock]

I would definetly go with feather clipping before pinioning...