Hey,

We just won mandarin ducks here and we were wondering how often should we clip their wings. We just don't want these mandarins to fly high and get over the enclosure.

Any help on this would be highly appreciated.

Yeah, ducks grow new flight feathers after molting. Ducks molt each summer, as they drop all their flight feathers in early to mid summer; growing a new set by late summer through early fall.

Cipping the wing is quite straightforward to do by simply trimming the primary feathers on one wing. Clipping one wing will unbalance the duck making flying impossible and is completely painless, in fact to the duck it is a bit like having its hair cut.

However, Pinioning is the act of surgically removing one pinion joint, the joint of a bird's wing farthest from the body, to prevent flight. Removing the pinion joint is similar when you remove a person’s hand by cutting through the wrist. We donot pinion any of our ducks. It is generally done in the winter, when weather is really cool in the 30s. It is recommended to perform pinioning before birds are a few days old. When done with older ducks, the pinioning is more stressful to them and the cut tends to bleed.