BigBlueHen53

❤️ Exodus 20:8-11 ❤️
Premium Feather Member
5 Years
Mar 5, 2019
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SE Missouri, USA
So we've moved our 7-week old chicklets out of the well house into a "halfway house," which is basically a storage shed. This might prove to be a bad plan, we don't know yet. But for now, this is what we have. It's about 4' high and the roof slides back, which we thought would provide daylight and ventilation. Problem is, chickens are BIRDS. And birds can FLY!!! We are going to have to clip wings to keep them in if we open the top. So... my question is, on the little acrobats, should we clip just one wing, like we do when needed on the big girls? Or both? It's another 8 weeks or so before we integrate the flocks. Thanks!
 
Be very careful clipping wings on chicks that small....feathers may still have blood in the shaft. If you get a bleeder, pluck it out fully.
 
Wing is not my first choice for containing juvenile chickens. It needs to be repeated too often and efforts are better directed at excluding predators that also confine chickens. Predator of biggest concern in Missouri is the Coopers Hawk.

Clip one wing properly first. If capacity to clear fence not reduced enough, then clip other wing as well. The one wing clipping is not based on facts, just another example of dogma.
 
Thanks to all of you for your words of wisdom and advice. For the moment we are not trying to keep them confined in a fenced yard, just in this 4' high container. We had hoped it would be sufficient for at least a week, after which time we would open it and let them "free range" in a small fenced yard next to the older hens. But it will not hold them with the lid slid back for light and ventilation. With it closed, it is pitch black inside and on a hot day it's an oven
EDITED to delete photo accidentally attached too many times. Sorry!

20190430_150937.jpg
 
Also ... do we have to keep them confined? If we open up the front doors, and keep the food and water in the container (aka "coop"), they'll find their way back into it, won't they?
 

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