Escaping Chicken

[BansheeBenji]

I have a little Cuckoo Maran, named Flo, who is relentless about escaping. At first she just toured infront of the fence, I have one of those flexible electric ones (no power to it of course, we're in suburbia, I just needed something I could shift around easily for the time being), and a little towards our sheds about ten feet away, but now she's venturing into the rest of the yard and it's causing problems.
I go outside about every fifteen minutes to an hour to put her back in on naughty days. She'll start getting out as early as 7 and I have to manually put her to bed every night, because she gets out to look for me then. (She also likes to try and roost on me instead, pretty sure she thinks I hatched her.) The rest of the time though, I'm sure she does it for fun. She's not bullied, has plenty of food and water, the main run is about 10x40 currently for just four birds, and I've been piling up soil for them to till, so they haven't been bored. She's only about three pounds so she just hops over her favorite escape spot. We're going to build a covered run (16x9 and 6 feet tall with perches) here in the next month or so but in the meantime, is there any way to break her of this habit? I don't want her escaping while I'm gone and destroying my vegetables, or getting stuck out without water while it's warm, she's seriously heat intolerant.

Pictured: Flo and her sister Queenie, my Salmon Favorelle who has all her wings but only uses them to gain running speed with her tiny legs. While screaming. But her spazziness is it's own post.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Close bilateral (meaning both sides), "hard" wing clipping of the primary flight feathers.... takes out a good amount of lift... I'm not worried about them being able to escape predators in my yard... going out of bounds is life threatening.... domestic dogs are a number one predator.

I tried the whole clip one side only and it didn't work the way they claim it will by making them unbalanced (for me). My birds could still make it over the fence just a lot more sloppily.

Out of about 200 hundred birds I have raised... I had to clip only 3 so far who thought the grass was always greener on the other side and tried to show others their bad habits. The feathers grow back after molt, but by then most birds know they can't make it and don't try anymore since they don't know they magically got their feathers back now. When done correctly you can't really see it so they are still beautiful... I clip primaries up to the coverts...
https://poultrykeeper.com/general-chickens/how-to-clip-a-wing-to-stop-chickens-flying/

Or maybe electrify your little fence?

 

[BansheeBenji]

I tried the one wing clip thing after the avian vet here said they only needed one done. I didn't have any luck with it either. We're hoping to have the covered coup done before my two older girls that are just starting to molt get their wings back. They're constantly waiting and plotting for their chance to make a grand escape.
I'm thinking now that I didn't clip them back far enough. Hopefully that will help. I finally saw where she hops out from a few minutes ago and I think I'm going to try and part of their old fence behind it to confuse her too.

 

[RWise]

Wing clipping will stop flight, not jumping. And like your VET said only 1 wing,,,

I had a girl (EE) that was gifted to me, yes an escape artist, her wings were severely clipped (I would never do that), yet she could still jump to a tree limb 8 feet up, right next to my 4 foot fence.
Her problem was feathers had grown over her eyes and she was having a hard time seeing. Once I clipped those feathers away from her eyes, she was a different bird. And that big ugly predator was a handsome rooster, which she ran straight to and squatted for!

My bestest tool is a fish dip net, they hate it! Once they have been in it a few times, they have so far stopped their escaping.
Good luck!

 

[Shadrach]

I have a little Cuckoo Maran, named Flo, who is relentless about escaping. At first she just toured infront of the fence, I have one of those flexible electric ones (no power to it of course, we're in suburbia, I just needed something I could shift around easily for the time being), and a little towards our sheds about ten feet away, but now she's venturing into the rest of the yard and it's causing problems.
I go outside about every fifteen minutes to an hour to put her back in on naughty days. She'll start getting out as early as 7 and I have to manually put her to bed every night, because she gets out to look for me then. (She also likes to try and roost on me instead, pretty sure she thinks I hatched her.) The rest of the time though, I'm sure she does it for fun. She's not bullied, has plenty of food and water, the main run is about 10x40 currently for just four birds, and I've been piling up soil for them to till, so they haven't been bored. She's only about three pounds so she just hops over her favorite escape spot. We're going to build a covered run (16x9 and 6 feet tall with perches) here in the next month or so but in the meantime, is there any way to break her of this habit? I don't want her escaping while I'm gone and destroying my vegetables, or getting stuck out without water while it's warm, she's seriously heat intolerant.

Pictured: Flo and her sister Queenie, my Salmon Favorelle who has all her wings but only uses them to gain running speed with her tiny legs. While screaming. But her spazziness is it's own post.

The short answer in my experience is no.
I have one hen here who is a professional tree huger. Every evening at dusk she goes up a tree and perches on her favorite branch. Every night I get her out of the tree and put her in her coop with the rest of her tribe. She doesn't struggle when I get her out of the tree, but her determination to go up the tree in the first place is unbelievable. I've played dodge with her trying to prevent her doing this. I've shut her in her coop for a few days hoping it will break the habit. I've caught her before she goes up the tree and put her in the coop, but the next evening she's back up the tree again. The only times she doesn't do this is if she thinks heavy rain is imminent or if she is planning to sit on eggs.
Her name is Dink. Her mother also had some strange habits.
I've been getting Dink out of this tree for five years now.
I've been doing it for so long I've come to enjoy it.
Here she is......up a tree surprisingly.....

 

[QnBeryl]

Training chickens is easy. I have 11 hens. I only have a 4 ft chain link fence around my yard. Five of my hens insisted on flying over and into the neighbor's yard. And yes I had clipped one wing. However, I didn't want them going over the fence at all. I opened the gate to my backyard and started giving snacks to the ones who stayed in the yard. My little piglets came running through the gate to get the snack. Those who didn't run through the gate, I walked around the shrubs to get the hen. Then walked back around the shrubs to put her in the yard. They have learned they only get snack when they are where they are supposed to be and they can't fly over the fence.

For Flo: When she escapes, give treats to the ones who stay in the enclosure. She will love the treats and stay inside to get the treats. At first you may have to do a snack every hour to keep her in and then slowly give fewer treats. Mine love the black sunflower seeds. I get them at Walmart in the bird food isle.

For Dink: When I got her out of the tree, I would give her a treat or some extra love as you put her in the coop. Don't say anything to her until you get to the coop. It shouldn't take too long before she learns to go into the coop.