how do you properly pick up a chicken?

[cluckin tractor]

how should you hold the bird when dusting, checking or moving the chickens by hand about. bit confused about how you should handle them

 

[PurpleChicken]

The best advice for holding a chicken is just grab it. Hold it whatever way you need to do what you need to do. If the chicken is a nutjob, like many chickens and BYC members are, than hold upside down by the legs. It seems cruel but the bird will be just fine and it won't be harmed. Manhandle the things.

 

[Wolfwoman]

Quote:

I have to agree!! lol

 

[Cindiloohoo]

by the drumstick...probably with a napkin to keep from getting your fingers greasy...

 

[Dora'smom]

We use a few different methods. We either grab with both hands, over the bird's back, so that our fingers are down over their wings, and then either carry them this way, or under an arm, or tuck them in the corner of an arm, so that their feet are down below the arm that is cradling them. We also have been known to slip a hand (the palm and fingers part) between the legs of a chicken and lift. My husband is a chicken whisperer, and he totally lays the bird on its back in the crook of his arm, like a baby, and strokes its chest and belly. It's very sweet. Usually they totally relax, and stretch their legs out.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Dora'smom :

We use a few different methods. We either grab with both hands, over the bird's back, so that our fingers are down over their wings, and then either carry them this way, or under an arm, or tuck them in the corner of an arm, so that their feet are down below the arm that is cradling them. We also have been known to slip a hand (the palm and fingers part) between the legs of a chicken and lift. My husband is a chicken whisperer, and he totally lays the bird on its back in the crook of his arm, like a baby, and strokes its chest and belly. It's very sweet. Usually they totally relax, and stretch their legs out.

This is what I do too, except for the stroking part

Though I have been known to grab one by a leg when it is roosting over my head and I'm loading up for a sale

ETA: Come to think of it, I agree with PC's methods too

 

[Jeremy Parker]

depends on what I'm doing with it???

For the soup pot

how ever I can, throat works good though

One of my egg laying girls, they come to me and fight over sitting on my feet and want to be picked up!

Good luck with your flock

 

[LauraG]

I grab them firmly with both hands, on the wings, so they are not flapping around.

I repeat, firmly, cuz if a wing sneaks out you will get wing-slapped in the face and it is humiliating to be beat down by a hen.

ok, then I nestle them in the crook of my arm with their legs hanging underneath. (so the one wing is against my body and the other is along-side my forearm. And never with them facing me. I like my eyes just the way they are thank you...

 

[journey11]

I grab them quickly, being sure to hold down the wings. If they can flap them the will, and they'll think they have a better chance of escaping! If you're holding them firmly enough, it's like they know you mean business. I have had to hold them by the legs upside down before, but I hate to do it! It's probably more traumatic for me than for them I always worry I'm going to pop their legs off or something! I've heard stories of old farm wives holding multiple birds per hand upside down by the legs, like carrying a suitcase--and I believe it, because they do zone out and get quiet when you do that.

My 3 year old learned the hard way the other day not to hold them upside down on their back like a baby! Chicken foot scratch to the face!

 

[cluckmuck2010]

reading these -love them!

Mine seem to know I mean business when I walk up to them they just squat down and do some little foot dance and wait to be picked up. I too make sure that I have a good handle on their wings and just tuck under arm like a football.

One of the chickens had a soft egg & I had to clean her off. She just sat there on my lap and let me give her a good cleaning. I am a first timer raising chickens and am sure I was just lucky with the co-operation I was getting but gald for it. I figured she didn't like being covered in yolk and wanted to be cleaned