Clipping wings and keeping chickens in run

[Chloesmama]

Hi all-
We have 4- 9 week old hens that are starting to test their wings. We have a 6.5 ft brick wall on one side, a 6 ft wooden fence on one side and the house on the 3rd side. The 4th side has a 4.5 ft fence made of lattice, but they have not shown interest in getting over this part. They have been hopping onto the roof of their coop (maybe 4 ft off the ground) and looking toward the brick wall (which is just a few feet taller than the coop roof). If they get over the wall, they will be near a busy road and I am sure will get hit, or eaten by neighborhood cats. I have a small run that is completely enclosed (8 ft x 4 ft), but they are getting restless staying in there.

My question- how to keep them in? When can I clip wings? Will they still be able to hop onto the coop and over the wall even if I clip?

here is a photo of the coop and enclosed run, and the bigger are we usually let them in during the day. We don't really have options on where to move the coop as it was built for that space and the grading on the ground is very sloped.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[HerbanChicks]

We just recently clipped ours since we had an incident where 4 were able to get over the 6' fence into the front yard and we ended up losing a SLW. You could also consider putting netting up over the top, we're doing that in our run as an additional safety measure since the fence is only 5'

 

[donrae]

From the picture, I'm thinking if they couldn't get onto the coop roof they wouldn't challenge the perimeter fences. I think you could try tacking some type of post to the corners of the roof, like a 1x1 board or something similar. Then string fishing line from post to post, making an invisible barrier. A few times of hitting something they can't see should be pretty discouraging. I'd think anything that blocks their access to the roof would work. I agree it's a prime jumping-off place, but think they'd be too intimidated to go up to the fence itself.

 

[Chloesmama]

Thanks for the suggestions! I think we may try the fishing line trick first as it is pretty simple and inexpensive. Hoping the girls will stay in. Husband is not happy that they were on the roof of the coop 2 times today.

Thanks again and keep the ideas coming!