Clip wings or not.????

[kntrybumpkin]

I have a question our chicken run is completely enclosed our chickens were never tamed when we got them so if they get loose we wouldn't ever catch them... Now my question we have guineas we have raised and we are going to add them to our chicken flock but before we do that we are expanding our run which is 6 foot tall we would like to leave the new add on part uncovered so the guinea are allowed to come and go as they please to eat drink and roost at night or incase of bad weather.... So I hate to do it but should we clip our chickens wings so we don't have to worry and they stay put in their place or not clip and risk it and hope they stay

 

[Free Feather]

If they know where home is, they will come back when they leave the pen. Just curious, if the guineas are allowed to free range, why are the chickens not allowed?

 

[kntrybumpkin]

If they know where home is, they will come back when they leave the pen. Just curious, if the guineas are allowed to free range, why are the chickens not allowed?

the chickens we have bought from people here and there already grown and we can't tame them the guinea we raised from hatch so they are figure we would have better luck with the ones that are tame we live way out in the country and have alot of predators coyotes particularly but the bottom line the guineas are mine and the chickens are my daughters and she is too scared something will happen to them.... My hopes are once they are together with the guinea going out and coming back long enough the chickens will also and eventually let them out too they are in a very large run and we have tried taming them just hasn't worked

 

[pdirt]

By "not tamed" do you mean you can't pick them up, can't handle them? Many chickens are never truly tamed in this way. Or have you already experienced first hand that if you let them free range they just take off, not to return? If you haven't tried the latter, you might be assuming something that's not true.

Generally, if you lock up a new flock of chickens in the coop/run for a couple weeks, they learn where "home" is. Home being a safe place to roost and a reliable source of food and water. They return to the coop when it gets dark. Occasionally you will have one bird that doesn't return (roosts under a bush or in a tree), but I've only read about this and have never personally experienced that.

 

[Free Feather]

By "not tamed" do you mean you can't pick them up, can't handle them? Many chickens are never truly tamed in this way. Or have you already experienced first hand that if you let them free range they just take off, not to return? If you haven't tried the latter, you might be assuming something that's not true.

Generally, if you lock up a new flock of chickens in the coop/run for a couple weeks, they learn where "home" is. Home being a safe place to roost and a reliable source of food and water. They return to the coop when it gets dark. Occasionally you will have one bird that doesn't return (roosts under a bush or in a tree), but I've only read about this and have never personally experienced that.

Pretty much.

 

[MakelaNJoe]

I live in city limits i have alittle less then an acre that is fenced in by a 4 1/2ft cyclone fencing i let my chickens out to free range in the evening my two silkie polish mixes have never been real people oriented so i have to "herd" them back to the coop sometimes as they wont let me catch them but the have yet to try to escape he yard so i have left their wings be for now. Usually they stay close to home or where the food is!

 

[kntrybumpkin]

By "not tamed" do you mean you can't pick them up, can't handle them? Many chickens are never truly tamed in this way. Or have you already experienced first hand that if you let them free range they just take off, not to return? If you haven't tried the latter, you might be assuming something that's not true.

Generally, if you lock up a new flock of chickens in the coop/run for a couple weeks, they learn where "home" is. Home being a safe place to roost and a reliable source of food and water. They return to the coop when it gets dark. Occasionally you will have one bird that doesn't return (roosts under a bush or in a tree), but I've only read about this and have never personally experienced that.

by not tame I mean they run from you when they see even when you have feed once you leave the pen they will go back to what they were doin they don't let you anywhere close to them

 

[pdirt]

Quote:
Not letting you anywhere near them shouldn't be a deal-breaker for them learning to return to a coop.

Have you tried letting them out yet? What happened?

 

[pdirt]

I live in city limits i have alittle less then an acre that is fenced in by a 4 1/2ft cyclone fencing i let my chickens out to free range in the evening my two silkie polish mixes have never been real people oriented so i have to "herd" them back to the coop sometimes as they wont let me catch them but the have yet to try to escape he yard so i have left their wings be for now. Usually they stay close to home or where the food is!

Do you mean that to put your "chickens to bed" that you do it by hand? You pick up each chicken and place them in the coop? You can do that if you want, but it's not necessary. When it gets dark, they will return to the coop on their own. Actually, they will return to the coop usually long before what you or I would consider "dark".

 

[abbyok]

Total newbie so my experience may not count. But, my chickens do not like me - but over time I have been able to get them to like food! I bought a bag of meal worms. At first I shook the bag outside the run and then threw meal worms into run. After a while I opened run door and shook bag, dropped mealworms and walked away, finally I let them out of run, shook bag and dumped mealworms at my feet anytime they wandered to far away from me. I still can't walk towards them, but when I need them to go back into their run I just stand by run and shake the meal worms in the door. This excessive mealworms has created very spoiled chickens, but they do come when they hear the bag. But, having said that I've noticed that the birds stay pretty close to the coop and sometimes when one or two fly out of or temporary paddock, they actually stay right next to the fence where all the other chickens are. In fact I saw today they didn't even go the 5 ft from it to get into the garden (their favorite spot) they just hung out on the other side of the paddock fence that the other chickens were still in. We could be doing everything wrong though