Good morning.i had inherited some grown chickens a few years ago when we bought a house. Since then we moved and I am now getting baby chicks next week to start my own little backyard flock. I live in a small town inside the city limits. We can have chickens. When I let them out of the pen to free range the yard, I don’t want them to fly over our 6 foot fence and escape or get harmed by roaming dogs and birds of prey. Do any of you clip the wings and if so do you just do one side?
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I DO use wing clipping for some birds. Doing so, as you note may actually be what KEEPS them safe.
Most of my birds enjoy the space within my fences well enough. It's usually those pesky , curious Easter Eggers... mine can easily clear the roof standing still from the ground. And they always wanna hide their eggs!
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Before I started I thought the single wing was the right way to go. The THEORY of unbalance. It was however COMPLETELY ineffective in almost every case for me so far. I also have used it to keep roosters in their own pasture. But a close bilateral cut on BOTH wings does work to take some lift out of them... keeping most of them inside my 4 foot fence. When I say most of them, I mean the VERY few that insist the grass is greener on the other side and try to teach the others to follow. I don't do it for the majority of birds. And I think they still have plenty of jumping evasion techniques when clipped. So that little bit of wing isn't going to save any of my birds from a predator that might be after them. But they are safer INSIDE my fence without the extra lift then outside my fence with plenty of lift.
I use stock yard fencing... most birds try to go through NOT OVER. When I lived in the city, I didn't have to clip wings at all. So it will depend heavily on the individual bird if you will want to consider clipping or not. I personally would not unless a problem or POSSIBLE problem (like one heading to the fence top to look around) presented itself... since it very often ISN'T an issue.
Same here!Birds that continue bad behavior are re-homed to someone that completely confines them in a covered run.
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I think the reason they may not try again after molt is because they already know they can't make it and so they have given up trying and don't know molting might offer more lift.
Funny, I'm telling you it's the EE EVERY time!
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