Clipping chickens wings is one soultion to stop your birds getting out of their run and causing trouble in your garden.

Chickens that have escaped the safety of their run are also targets for predators, so it makes sense to keep them inside their run.

Knowing that your chickens can’t get out will give you peace of mind too.

It’s a pain having to go and round up the flock and put them back into their run, only to have them flying out again the minute you turn your back and walk away.

And what happens to the birds when you aren’t around to return them to the run? They are vulnerable to being attacked and carried off.

Plus they will probably head for areas that you don’t want them anywhere near, like your vegetable garden or even worse, your neighbours plants!

So How Do You Go About Clipping Chickens Wings?

You need a pair of strong kitchen scissors and an extra pair of hands.

I’ts easier if one person holds the bird while the other one does the clipping.

Catch hold of your chicken and tuck her under your arm. Then take hold of her feet in one hand (with a finger separating the feet) and turn the hen upside down.

You can clip the wing while the bird is tucked under your arm, but in this position the hen can still struggle and make life difficult. When the bird is upside down she will stay quiet while you get the job done.

Some birds go down without a fuss while others flap a little ( or a lot!).

Some will put up quite a struggle, shrieking loudly, flapping wildly and pecking at you. Keep hold of the bird, she’ll settle after 30 seconds or so and then you can proceed.

The actual process of clipping chickens wings is very simple.

Extend the wing outwards away from the hens body. When it is nice and stretched out you will be able to clearly see what is wing flesh and what is feather. On the underside of the wing you’ll see a row of shorter feathers. We cut along the line of the shorter feathers. Just take your scissors and cut about half way along the wing, the bird doesn’t feel any pain, it’s just like cuttng your fingernails.

Repeat for the other wing, if you are going to clip both.

When you are done, lower the cicken to the ground and release her.

She will immediately resume her normal behavior, albeit after voicing her disaproval.

Some sources say to only clip one wing because this puts the chicken off balance, thus preventing flight.

We found that this didn’t work for our birds, we clipped a wing on each one of our 12 hens, with all of the flapping and shrieking involved and had to set to and catch them all over again because they still flew up and over the fence.

Try clipping one wing first and see how it works out, you can always do the other one if you need to.

Watch this video clip of clipping chickens wings.