Clipping Wings

Why clip a chicken's wings?

My husband ran inside yelling...

"Our chickens have flown the coop!"

And they did...literally.

As our babies have grown, they have started to spread their wings. We went outside the other night to lock them up in their coop for the night and were scared when we couldn’t find them in the pen. After a frantic search of the yard, we finally looked up. To our surprise, all three babies were perched upon an arbor about 9 feet high! With the help of a ladder, they were soon locked away safely for the night. A couple of days later we decided it was time to clip their wings.

While chickens are know as flightless birds, they are still able to utilize their wings to travel short distances. Our babies started this at two months old and have gotten stronger and started to fly higher and longer as their wing feathers developed. As they age and put on weight, their ability to go high or far greatly decreases. But in the mean time, a quick snip of their flight feathers is a good idea.

To accomplish this task, it usually takes two people. One must hold the bird close to them, so the second person can do the clipping. We used a pair of household scissors to cut with. Simply extend one wing to expose the long layer of flight feathers that are tucked under the wing when the bird is walking. Cut about 1/3 to ½ of the length off. It is only necessary to clip one wing on each bird. The purpose behind this is to throw off the chick’s balance, so they can not fly high.

Below are images of the steps I have described:

The chicks have no feeling in their feathers, just like human hair. They will suffer no bad side effects from doing this. You may notice, as we did, they will pick at the trimmed wing for a short while after you cut it. They do this because they realize something is different, not because they are in any discomfort.
With the wings clipped, we now don’t have to worry about them flying the coop!


Flying Chicks and Clipped Wings,

Ling Ling and Crutch