What age do adult feathers grow in?

[Jamin Mayer]

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It's a big topic. Search: "clipping wings on chickens" on YouTube.

Gosh, they have everything on there...

 

[fastpat]

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That's weird. It seems like all of the research I've done, many people are clipping the wings. Is it an urban chicken raising thing?

Probably. I have no expectations of having to clip wing feathers because we're rural.

Chickens get their adolescent feathers first, mine are "flying" up to about a foot to roost on the brooder fence. That's not much of a problem, they're in a spare bathroom and the whole room is at brooder temperature.

According to what I've read, chickens have an "adult" molt at about 18 months.

 

[Jamin Mayer]

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That's weird. It seems like all of the research I've done, many people are clipping the wings. Is it an urban chicken raising thing?

Probably. I have no expectations of having to clip wing feathers because we're rural.

Chickens get their adolescent feathers first, mine are "flying" up to about a foot to roost on the brooder fence. That's not much of a problem, they're in a spare bathroom and the whole room is at brooder temperature.

According to what I've read, chickens have an "adult" molt at about 18 months.

Thanks. That's helpful experience. I've got 1.5 acres, but I'm still worrying about them getting away. I gues I'll get over it...

 

[chkinut]

so if they get their "adolescent" feathers 1st.....do they keep those teen feathers until they have their 1st molt? i'm wondering, cuz my girls are a week old today. and i'm wondering about my EE babies.....the feathers i'm seeing on their wings....is that the color they'll be? or will their adult plumage look a lot different? i've got 4 EE, one will be cream or white....but i have 3 that look about the same....of course i can tell them apart, one is darker, one is more of a rusty color, one is lighter, but they all have that chipmunk pattern and their wing feathers look pretty much the same too.

 

[Jamin Mayer]

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Mine are that way too. I've got some Pearl White Leg Horns that are more on the yellow side at the moment. I've wondered the same...

 

[abanjaf]

I live on an acre as are most of the homes around here. In the past 9 years, I've not once had a chicken leave the yard. Seriously, I would never have thought to clip wings! Shall check out YouTube

 

[Jamin Mayer]

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That's awesome. I've seen other people free range with their chickens and they don't have a problem either.

 

[fastpat]

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I had a friend with the problem of his chickens getting over his fence and into the neighbors yard. He had a five foot small animal fence, but my reading of the issue was that he was "free ranging" the chickens and feeding them very little. I think that pushed out their hunting grounds by quite a bit.

I just researched my Plymouth Rock breed book and can say that my PR's feathers aren't even close to what the adult's feathers should look like. The adolescent feathers are barred, dark brown and black, the adult females should be penciled, not barred. The adult males should be mostly solid colors, but a combination of black feathers and brown-red ones.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This site talks about the molting process of chicks before they become adults. As you can see, they grow three different sets of feathers before they become adults.

Kansas State feather loss
http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/library/lvstk2/mf2308.pdf

The juvenile plumage can look different that the final adult plumage. Recessive genes seem to express themselves in juvenile plumage but you will not see that in the adults. Or some of them are just different. An easy example is the Australorp, a solid black adult. Juveniles have white feathers on their wings that the adults will not have.

Whether or not a chicken will fly over a fence depends on their motivation more than anything else. Some bantams and game chickens fly 15 feet up to a tree branch to roost. The heavier breeds do not fly as well, but if they are motivated, they can easily get over a 5 or 6 foot high fence. A predator might motivate a chicken to go over a fence, or maybe a hen trying to avoid a rooster. Some chickens just seem to like to roam. My coop and run is about 350 feet from the road yet they like to go up there and play chicken with the neighbor's cars and trucks. They lose.

When a couple of mine discovered that they could get to the green stuff outside the run by flying over the 5 foot fence, I elected to modify my run instead of wing clipping. It just seemed more permanent.

 

[Jamin Mayer]

Nice link.