Tethers and Why They Should Never Be Used on Peafowl

[Birdrain92]

BB, Is this show for 4H or FFA?

Both. The Fair has 4-H and FFA members. Since I'm the only FFA member showing poultry I have to show with 4-H members. Otherwise FFA members show by themselves and 4-H members show by themselves until Champion competition were the 1st place winner in each class gets to show against each other. Then that winner is Grand Champion. The Grand Champion must show not only their animal but different types of animals called Round Robin. If I got to Round Robin for example I would have to show, Thora, somebodies dog, somebodies cat, somebodies, rabbit or cavy, and somebodies pygmy goat and these other people that got Grand Champion in each animal would have to show Thora. No matter what if you show you must have one of your animals for showmanship. Now if I had my ducks Kenia and Kida, Kenia I would show in Showmanship but Kida and Thora would just have to stay in their cages and be judged bass on their health and their pen if it's clean or dirty. Then you have a choice to stop there are do another show. Beef, Swine, Sheep, and Meat Goat have Market Class.

 

[Paintedheather]

The duck has to be the correct weight, not too skinny and not too fat right? I forgot about goats. They are often shown too. At the fair the leaders got to push a pig. Growing up in California, I had no clue what to expect. Turns out you walk the pig with a stick. I did that twice. From there on, I made sure I had other plans on that day. I don't like pigs. Years ago I had a student who won many awards for his chickens. I think he continued on in college.

 

[Birdrain92]

The duck has to be the correct weight, not too skinny and not too fat right? I forgot about goats. They are often shown too. At the fair the leaders got to push a pig. Growing up in California, I had no clue what to expect. Turns out you walk the pig with a stick. I did that twice. From there on, I made sure I had other plans on that day. I don't like pigs. Years ago I had a student who won many awards for his chickens. I think he continued on in college.

No. Animals don't need to be weighed unless they are being sold. If they are being sold they have to make a minimum weight and for some of the market animals they can't exceed a certain weight either. Beef you can get them as fat as you want. Pig stick no halter or lead just move them with a pig stick. Cattle all get halter and lead rope with a show stick. Sheep just have a halter no lead or stick, goats, have no idea. Never seen them shown. I wonder what Thora will get.

 

[3BirdGirlz]

In Montana we have our 4H county show and then the state fair. Only county does the round robin.
In poultry: there is standard and bantam chicken classes. They then divide these into breed and color variety. Ducks are similar but as large, medium weight, small and bantam. We can show any birds. The exotics are in the any other bird class and are birds like peafowl, pheasants, mandarin ducks, etc that aren't easily shown on the table. They are in large cages and the judge never touches them. Usually our judges don't like to handle the turkeys, geese, or ducks either. And these are APA certified judges.
ALL birds are judged, and which ever wins their class, then all those go up for best in show. We don't have to sell our birds in our 4H shows, BUT they do have to be appropriate weight as stated in the standards. This does not go for the exotics as I don't think they really have a set weight range. But if my cochin bantam is over weight, I'd get disqualified.
We then do showmanship. Our birds are not allowed to be tethered. They have to stand on the table to show they have been table trained and worked with. Kids in the same class such as junior and seniors line up and wait for the judge to ask you questions and show your bird. No one has ever used peas for this. But someone usually brings a pair to be judged. I'll have to get pictures of our setup.
The kids also have to have a certain amount of their project books completed to be allowed to show. We have our county show in 2 weeks, then state fair 2 weeks after that. My daughter will be competing again this year I am also a leader and did 4H my whole childhood. I think it's a great thing !

 

[Birdrain92]

I did 4-H for 2 years and then I went to FFA. The two years for 4-H were Dog and poultry. Those that bring exotics also have a duck or chicken. I will have to take pics of our fair. Beef and poultry are my favorite types of species to show. FFA we have a record book but not a project book like 4-H. We just have to keep a record of our animals. Days we work with, special things like first bath or cleaned coop, wormed and vaccinated, halter broke, gave birth to a calf or layed an egg. We also have to keep our finances in order. The record books also help us get our State Degree in FFA. They just have a health check in. Basically your bird has lice, mites, or fleas, no show. Your bird clean you can show. I weighed Kenia and Kida just for fun but people or at least most people here don't weigh there birds.

 

[MinxFox]

Okay well I have been thinking about this, and I am in the middle about tethering.

I will agree about birds of prey being able to handle tethering because of their stronger legs. Here are some photos I got at the Ren Fair of tethered birds of prey:
All Birds had both legs tethered and had a bell on one leg. They were all on a pedestal.


Here is one of the hawks in the show. You can see the small cords that the falconer uses to hold on to him with.

I can also say that I have been hit in the face by peacock and peahen wings being flapped in my face when trying to catch some birds so I can tell you there is definitely some serious power in those wings. I can also say that I have seen a peahen that has always been penned get out of the pen, get spooked by me, and take off flying like a rocket over treetops so they don't have to be 100% wild birds to be strong fliers.

I love my birds too much to risk tethering them (not saying it would hurt them, just saying I personally wouldn't risk it and I have no reason to tether).

I know you can tether peafowl though because I have seen photos and videos of adult peacocks on a tether at a park. In Asia it is popular to have several peacocks tethered to a perch where visitors can get photos with the birds.
I wish I could find some of the tethered peafowl photos, but starting at 0:33 in this video, you see a few peacocks behind fence and a visitor comes up and touches one. They are not running to get food because they are tethered. Again at 1:14 the video zooms in on these tethered peacocks:

Same park, but again it shows the peacocks and a man fluffing up the train of one for a photo of a lady holding the bird:

After watching these videos, it is amazing that these peacocks do not try to fly off with the huge flock of peafowl. They seem so used to the large crowds and the people wanting to get photos with them. I am not sure how they have them tethered, but it is just something to think about that tethering can be done, but it is doing it the right way that is a mystery. How do you teach a flighty bird how to be on a leash? Peep is pretty tame but he doesn't like his feet being touched and while he is friendly to strangers, he still is a bit weary of strangers and doesn't like to be pet by them as much as he likes to be pet by me and Aaron and other people that he knows.

Although I have to say I am not so sure we will ever be seeing this (the peacock is stuffed) hey that guy in the photo could be Birdrain all grown up! Sorry just had to say it. Like I said I think tethering can be done, but how safe is it??? I don't know. I would like to know the stats of that park though. Like when do they first introduce the bird to being tethered, how do they raise them, how do they acclimate them to so many people????? Anyways, thoughts?....

 

[Birdrain92]

In this video the peacocks have tethers and on one foot.

 

[MinxFox]

You know what I forgot about that... I can't remember their name but yes that is a person who travels around doing bird shows with their tame peacocks. I think they have a website or a facebook somewhere. I was amazed when I first found them I don't know how I forgot about that...Awesome stuff. I love how calm the peacocks are.

Edited to say I found their facebook and they are using my illustration of green peafowl vs. India blue peafowl and even put their logo on it... Aww man... https://www.facebook.com/KINGSBIRDS

 

[Birdrain92]

You must be very proud I bet.

 

[MinxFox]

Not exactly... While I made that illustration to educate others, I didn't make it for someone to stamp their website address and hash tag onto it. I have my website address on that illustration too, but I put that on there this year so they could have found the old image...

Anyways, here is what it says on their site about how they train their peacocks:
Quote:

In our training programs, keepers’ utilize a bridge, such as a voice cue to tell the animal what they did is right. The bridge, once a meaningless sound, acquires its reinforcing properties through the association with a favored reward. It "bridges" the time between when the correct behavior was performed and when the reward can be delivered.

Also, it looks like the "green peafowl" they use for show are actually high % spaldings, so if they are doing a talk about green peafowl vs. India Blue peafowl, that informative talk isn't so informative if they are using the spaldings as examples of green peafowl. Just sayin' that is my opinion and I am a little annoyed but I guess I should learn to get used to it. I see Texaspeafowl's photos all over the place being used.