Should I clip my chickens wings?

[suburbansilkies]

I have a silkie and a frizzle. The ends of their wings are looking a bit bare when I got them so I was thinking of trimming them for aesthetic purposes? Is this worth doing, is it healthy, does it hurt them and how should I do if?

 

[QueenMisha]

Because of Silkies and Frizzles feather mutations, some bareness of the primary and secondary feather's shafts is to be expected. It's normal and won't hurt them. I can't really see any reason to trim them... in my experience feather clipping tends to make them uglier, not prettier, and while these breeds don't exactly have a lot of flight capability in the first place, you'll be removing what little they do have. That said... I don't think it would actually hurt them to do it, it just seems rather pointless imo.

 

[drumstick diva]

I don't know about frizzles but, silkies barely fly, if you can call it that. However they can jump pretty high with or without clipping wings.

 

[TwoCrows]

Hello and welcome to BYC!

If you feel you want to trim them, you can. When the birds molt in the fall, the feathers will regrow back however. If I have a bird that looks a bit disheveled, I have trimmed off some to make them look a bit less ragged.

Enjoy your birds and welcome to our flock!

 

[Pork Pie]

Hi and welcome to BYC - you have some great advice already so I'll just say hello!

All the best
CT

 

[BantamFan4Life]

Welcome to BYC! I'm glad you joined us!