To clip or not to clip?

[tmarie623]

Sorry this is long. It's an early question for me, but I'd rather be prepared with info being this is our first flock (chicks are a couple weeks old right now). My husband and I have been trying to decide if we need to clip their wings in the future. We have a couple of friends that have chickens...one friend does clip wings and one friend does not. To me, nothing stands out between the two flocks--they rarely have any issues. I feel quite naive when it comes to this issue. I can think of plenty reasons not to clip--but obviously people do it for a reason and I would hate to find out the hard way. Our friend insists we will learn quickly that we need clip wings . I guess it all depends on your plans. I'll list all of our factors below. Any details or personal experiences will help! I'd rather not clip wings bc of the hassle but I'm not opposed to it if it makes life easier.

- Live on 2 acres with trees and somewhat active roadway in front...coop is on opposite side of home.

-Run is fully surrounded with 5 ft chain link. Coop can be completely shut and also has a smaller fully enclosed pen attached. We will be putting a wooden ramp for chickens to climb over chain link to the pasture area. We plan on free ranging chickens.

- We have dogs that do not get along with chickens. They are in their own gated yard separate from the chickens---I'm just hoping chickens don't decide to jump in with the dogs. The dogs are barkers so it should scare chickens away. Our neighbor has a dog that gets loose periodically, so I am concerned about chickens getting to safety in these instances.

-We have hawks and owls. Many people in our area have chickens in open fields so I'm not sure it's a huge issue as of now.

-I do veggie gardens...and I will be yelling at chickens as I figure out how to keep them out.

 

[Alexandra33]

Forgive me for forthcoming cluelessness, but..... I'm not entirely sure why you feel compelled to clip their wings. Is there a burning need? A reason to keep them confined to certain areas?

Quite frankly, I've been in situations where the birds needed confined in their uncovered run, but were fully capable of flying right over. Clipping seemed the perfect solution. Long story short, they still managed to escape. Chickens are fantastic jumpers, and can still use their seemingly immobilized wings to gain just enough leverage.

If you plan on free-ranging, I personally find not clipping safer. In cases of predator attacks, medium to light breeds oftentimes fly to evade capture. Heavy breeds will occasionally show surprising agility, as well.

Is enclosing your garden an option? Let me just say: it's far more effective to fence in a garden, and free-range the flock, than to fence in the flock, and deal with escapees. Chickens are less inclined to fly in, than fly out.

~Alex

 

[tmarie623]

Forgive me for forthcoming cluelessness, but..... I'm not entirely sure why you feel compelled to clip their wings. Is there a burning need? A reason to keep them confined to certain areas?

Quite frankly, I've been in situations where the birds needed to stay confined in their uncovered run, but were fully capable of flying right over. Clipping seemed the perfect solution. Long story short, they still managed to escape. Chickens are fantastic jumpers, and can still use their seemingly immobilized wings to gain just enough leverage.

If you plan on free-ranging, I personally find it safer to avoid clipping. In cases of predator attacks, medium to light breeds oftentimes fly to avoid capture. Heavy breeds will occasionally show surprising agility, as well.

Is enclosing your garden an option?

~Alex

This is exactly the type of input I was looking for. Only compelling reason is that someone told me I should and I don't want to discard that advice without getting more experienced opinions. I prefer to not b/c I'd rather my birds be fully functional. I tried searching for posts discussing the pros or cons, but all that came up was instruction on how to clip. The only reasoning I could come up with is maybe people don't want them roosting in taller trees, jumping inside gardens or leaving the general area??? I just feel like I'm missing some big detail about why you would need to clip wings (or why people do it) and I'm trying to educate myself. As for my garden, I will likely have to enclose somehow. I'm sure, like you said, they can get in with or without clipped wings.

 

[Kris5902]

Beeed and temperament seem to have a large impact on inclination to fly up, out, and escape, at least so much as I have been observing in my birds so far. My Marans and Barnvelders are more ground birds, but my lighter breeds like to fly short distances and get up high, usually by landing on me! I’ve also got three red layer breeds that won’t consider jumping or trying to fly Over even a 2’ high barrier.

If you’re planning on Free Ranging them I would leave their wings alone... considering you’re planning on building a ramp over the fencing for them. Or do you have a perimeter fence you would like to use to contain them? We use about 10’ high fencing to keep deer out of our garden, I’m pretty sure that would keep most of our chickens out too, aside from the little white ones that think they are parrots for some reason.

 

[Mrs. K]

Some will fly over a 5 foot fence like it is nothing. For me, my predators quickly made me make my run completely enclosed as in covered over the top with fencing. We joke that it is fort knox, but more than one coon has proved me wrong.

So my advice is to wait and see. If you have an escape artist, clip wings.

As for your garden, either the garden or the chickens need to be fenced, a chicken can destroy a garden faster than one can believe. Been there done that. Yelling won't work, and a 5 minute phone call with your mother is enough time to loose all the tomatoes, peppers and peas.

You are really not asking for this advice, so ignore it if you want. Do not let the idea of free ranging make you think that you can run more birds, that you can cheat on the size of the run or coop. If you are seeing hawks and owls, more than likely you have coons and possibly coyotes too, plus neighborhood dogs. Also, there may be times, where you would like to be gone for a few days. My point is, have a complete lock down set up that your birds can live in 24/7.

That way, when you get hit, you can lock them up safe for a few days till the predator moves on. Or if you are going to be gone.

You always have the option of opening the gate.

Mrs K

 

[tmarie623]

Some will fly over a 5 foot fence like it is nothing. For me, my predators quickly made me make my run completely enclosed as in covered over the top with fencing. We joke that it is fort knox, but more than one coon has proved me wrong.

So my advice is to wait and see. If you have an escape artist, clip wings.

As for your garden, either the garden or the chickens need to be fenced, a chicken can destroy a garden faster than one can believe. Been there done that. Yelling won't work, and a 5 minute phone call with your mother is enough time to loose all the tomatoes, peppers and peas.

You are really not asking for this advice, so ignore it if you want. Do not let the idea of free ranging make you think that you can run more birds, that you can cheat on the size of the run or coop. If you are seeing hawks and owls, more than likely you have coons and possibly coyotes too, plus neighborhood dogs. Also, there may be times, where you would like to be gone for a few days. My point is, have a complete lock down set up that your birds can live in 24/7.

That way, when you get hit, you can lock them up safe for a few days till the predator moves on. Or if you are going to be gone.

You always have the option of opening the gate.

Mrs K

We are totally on the same page (except I might cry in a minute about the tomatoes, peppers and peas I don't even have yet). My setup is made to go on lockdown if need be and I'm a few chickens short of a full coop--so I'm at a stopping point until I figure out genders. I'm not looking to keep them fenced in, so I'll be making my garden Ft Knox too i suppose! I've been thinking through the overhead coverage on the run...which will be the "wait and see". Our biggest predator at the moment would be stray dogs sadly.

 

[Mosey2003]

If they're going to be free to wander your whole place willy nilly, there's no need to clip a wing. If jumping into your dog pen means certain peril, and their fence isn't 6' tall, you may want to consider clipping. A free range chicken will go anywhere she pleases.

It really doesn't hurt them to clip one wing. If a hawk tries for them, they're not going to have any better chance with two full wings. If a stray dog goes for them, they can still get off the ground with one full wing, they just can't go as high/far.

 

[tmarie623]

If they're going to be free to wander your whole place willy nilly, there's no need to clip a wing. If jumping into your dog pen means certain peril, and their fence isn't 6' tall, you may want to consider clipping. A free range chicken will go anywhere she pleases.

It really doesn't hurt them to clip one wing. If a hawk tries for them, they're not going to have any better chance with two full wings. If a stray dog goes for them, they can still get off the ground with one full wing, they just can't go as high/far.

Hmmm...you just just gave me something to think about. The fence is 5" and I've got no doubt about my dogs tendencies. I'm glad I started working through this now. I feel like I will have learning curve when it comes to the chicken brain! I certainly thought a barking dog would be enough to keep them out lol!

 

[Mosey2003]

Hmmm...you just just gave me something to think about. The fence is 5" and I've got no doubt about my dogs tendencies. I'm glad I started working through this now. I feel like I will have learning curve when it comes to the chicken brain! I certainly thought a barking dog would be enough to keep them out lol!

What breed(s) of chicks did you get? Bantams and Leghorns, being smaller and lighter, will give you more trouble than large fowl heavy breeds. I don't know if they'd avoid dogs or not, chickens can surprise you. And often if they get into or out of somewhere, they show a surprising lack of logical thinking to reverse the situation. I had a couple get out of my run on me and even opening the gate and shooing them towards it did NOT work at all, even though they clearly wanted back with their friends.

 

[tmarie623]

What breed(s) of chicks did you get? Bantams and Leghorns, being smaller and lighter, will give you more trouble than large fowl heavy breeds. I don't know if they'd avoid dogs or not, chickens can surprise you. And often if they get into or out of somewhere, they show a surprising lack of logical thinking to reverse the situation. I had a couple get out of my run on me and even opening the gate and shooing them towards it did NOT work at all, even though they clearly wanted back with their friends.

Well, before I say it...I was fully aware that I would have a hot mess on my hands for a bit when I made this decision. I was up for a challenge and got the rare breed assortment, straight run, 7 chicks total. They are 2 weeks old and all VERY different. Lakenvelder, SS Hamburg, Polish, Cochin, Sumatra, Chantecler and an unknown for now. We will be adding in a couple of RIR pullets once they hit about 6 weeks (per request from my hubby). We don't have kids and with only 2 people in the house to feed I was able to be a bit daring with the chicken breeds. There are some that seems very alert & flighty which I like so far...just hoping that translates to "avoids danger"