Am I clipping them wrong?? (photo)

[thebirdguy]

When clipping any birds wings, it is best to clip both sides evenly... If you only clip one side, they will have more lift on the one side, causing them to crash... there is a real risk of injury when only one side is clipped. I usually clip only the primaries starting closest to the body and continuing out as far as necessary to the end of the wing to achieve the amount of lift that I want them to retain. Depending on how high your gate is, she may be able to "jump" that high even with all her primaries clipped... Good luck!!

 

[sally4500]

You guys are great!! Boy she's gonna be mad I was on the forum tonight!

 

[Chicken.Lytle]

I thought the reason to clip one side was to keep them from having sufficient control to be able to fly-jump high enough to get over the fence.

After seeing the marked pic I realize I did not clip enough when I tried it. Now I am stuck with free range chickens .

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

I have always only clipped one side. It puts them off balance enough that they can't fly or jump very high. When you cut both sides they are still stable ans can "jump/fly" quite high. Eeveryone I know only cuts one side.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Mature feathers have a completely hollow shaft, you can't make them bleed no matter how close to the skin you cut them. Growing feathers however still have a blood supply in the shaft and if you cut one of these blood feathers it will bleed. A lot. If you accidentally cut a blood feather, the best thing to do is to grab the feather at the base and pluck it out. Then apply pressure for a few minutes to stop/slow the bleeding. It might be dramatic, but a healthy bird will not bleed to death from a few damaged blood feathers

Personally, I prefer to clip both wings. Clipping one wing will throw her off balance, but she will still get some lift from the other wing and being off balance may make her more likely to injure herself in a crash landing. If a bird is still able to get lift with both wings trimmed, you didn't take enough feathers! In addition to not cutting the feathers back far enough, she's probably still getting lift in part because you clipped all of the feathers on the wing. You really only need to cut the first 5-8 (maybe 10 for a really strong flier) feathers; fewer for heavier breeds and more for lighter breeds like EE and leghorns. If you have someone who can help you do wings, I prefer to cut each feather individually using a pair of dog nail clippers. I spread the wing while someone else holds (putting a towel over their head will help make them calmer if they are struggling a bit) and, looking at the underside of the wing, clip each feather shaft at the base (or, in the case of blood feathers, where the feather has come out of the sheath already and there is no blood supply). This looks much neater and you don't have to worry about accidentally cutting a blood feather the way you do with blindly cutting all the feathers at once across the top side.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

Parrots should be clipped evenly, because they need to be able to glide to the floor and not crash, which can badly injure them. Chickens don't have as much of an issue with that, since they are starting on the ground. I have heard it both ways for chickens and both arguments have merit.

Still, some chickens jump like grasshoppers and 4 ft isn't much for a good jumper that's motivated, even clipped. An unmotivated chicken won't bother going over a 4 ft fence, even unclipped. At least, that's been my experience here. My fence jumper was named Rita and even a full clip didn't help. All the other girls behaved, even unclipped.

 

[write2caroline]

I leave one or two of the first feathers so they look prettier but I cut the rest back to the first line, I only do one side but my girls still manage to get out and fly some.
Caroline

 

[PepsNick]

Are you sure that's an easter egger? Looks like a black sexlink with muffs to me... to weird... though I have seen some dark-colored EE's.