How high can chickens fly? Do you clip wings?

[Grockle]

We've had our chickens for a week and they want to roam around the garden. I let them out then get paranoid that they'll jump the 4ft fence and escape so I panic and send them back into their pen. At the farm we got them from, they were roaming in a pen with a 3ft fence and didn't get out but still, I'm paranoid. I didn't want to clip their wings but I am not sure what to do.

I have a Columbia Blacktail who seems quite agile and two chunky sussex stars.

My girls are rubbish at flying. Their wings aren't clipped but they barely get off the ground, (despite a long run up some times and loads of frantic wing flapping).

Mine are just bog standard Gingers.

Sorry just realised I didin't really answer your question!

Its easy to clip wings if you want to do it to be safe. Just lift the wing up and trim a small bit off with scissors on the very end of the feathers on one side only (makes them unbalanced so can't take off)

Ok, that's reassuring, thank you. I am fairly certain that they won't escape but this is all new to me and I am being rather PFB-ish about them

I am happy to clip wings if I need to but I'd rather not if I don't have to iyswim.

My parents have always kept hens. They do clip their wings and I've helped my father do it. We did it in the evening when they were sleepy, on the perch.

When we first got our hens they managed to get on top of our 6' walls and fences! We clipped their wings but once they'd settled in and started to lay they stopped exploring and seemed happy to just amble around the yard. That was 2.5 yrs ago and we haven't had to do it again.

we've clipped the wings of our fliers - the bigger girls don't even hop much never mind try to fly.

As other have said, you just trim some off the end of one wing, make sure you only do one side!

You will also need to redo it every so often as they do grow back.

I was really worried that it would hurt them but it didn't and the neighbours stopped complaining about my girls nicking their veggies straight away

Ok, will definitely do it then. They flapped a lot and tried to fly today and I panicked and sent them home again . Just need to find a willing volunteer to hold a chook while I clip.

Grockle, it is possible to hold and clip on your own. Wait till its dark and the chickens are in their house as they'll be calmer. Go and get one, bring it in the kitchen and have it facing away from you. Use your knee to gently press the chicken int othe floor to stop it running off.

Get a pair of kitchen scissors and unfold a wing. You will see therir are two sets of featehrs on top of each other, the underneath ones are longer and these are the ones you trim. Cut them back so they are nearly as short as the upper feathers. If you look in the quill of the feather you can see its darker nearer the chicken, just don't cut into the feathers where its darker. There are YouTube videos.

Thanks Beaver - I didn't think of youtube!

We have three old ones and one new one. One of the old meanies has been menacing the newbie and she is scared to go in the coop so she flies up the trees when it starts to get dark. We have to get her down with some encouragement from a broom before we can put her in the coop. Once she is in t hey leave her alone. I think they can go pretty high if they want to.

Eeek! I like your name - one of my chooks is Marj

Ooh lovely breeds!!

I never clipped ours and they only jumped the 3-4ft fence when a fox was after them - sadly two were killed, so we (I) built a massive covered run for them instead.

I would love to free range them but our fox is vicious, it's been back several times, dug up the bodies and even turned the rabbit hutch upside down one day.

I can't take the risk. Run is about 7ft tall, tin roof, so lovely and dry underneath and about 5 metres long by 2.5 metres wide. We have 6 in there, they fly from the top of the ladder across the run but don't bother once they hit the floor

Haha - thanks.

Our kids chose our chooks names. We have Princess Layer, Big Chill, Snowball and Thad ( hubs chose that one - long boring story). We had a Darth Vader and Spiderman too, but they live with MIL now! The dog next door killed Superman.

Sorry but am falling off my chair with laughter

Sad though it is

we have boring names. Persephone, Mary, Agatha, Lucy, Ingrid Bergman (dead likeness, bad fringe) and Rose Suchak (as in 'Arose such a clatter') because she is really f*cking noisy.

oooh nice names. They sound very Beatrix Potter! (Well not Ingrid Bergman!)

The first ones were when the boys were just into StarWars. If we get any more and the lads are still into Ben 10 we may get a CannonBolt, or a SpiderMonkey next!

Lovely names.

We have Marjory, Daisy (DS named her because he is in Daisy class at school) and Eileen because she likes to stand on one leg .

I emailed the farm last night and the man called me this afternoon, sounding very concerned. He had a few suggestions but says the rest of the flocks are ok. He's going to send some meds. He did offer to take the girls back and give me new ones but I don't want to swap them.