Maman Poule

What is wing clipping?

Wing clipping is a temporary solution to flighty birds, meaning that they can fly for a few feet at a time, giving them enough boost to get over the fence out of their enclosure.  Wing clipping can also be a solution to over amourous cockerels, some believe, as their lose their balance and cannot mate.

It is the simply the process of cutting the primary flight feathers with a pair of scissors, thus unbalancing the bird in flight and rendering the wings useless for this action.

It is as painful as getting a haircut or trimming our fingernails, as there are no nerve endings in the feathers.

When should it be done?

Each year an adult chicken sheds most or all of their feathers, usually at the end of summer or early autumn, which get replaced with brand new feathers.  This process is known as moulting.  It is a good idea to wait until the moult has finished before wing clipping, as doing it right before the moult will mean that you will have to do it again in a few weeks’ time.

Do not wing clip during the moult as the feathers are full of blood and you will cause a lot of problems, not to mention getting blood everywhere, causing pain, undue stress and encouraging canabalism.

It is also useful to note that wing clipping a pullet (a female chicken that has not yet started laying nor had her first adult moult) will have to be redone after the first adult moult after she is 1 year old.  It is also more likely that it is the young pullet that is escaping, as they have the wing span but not yet the body mass of an adult to escape over the fence.

How is it done?

To clip their wings takes but a few careful minutes once a year, after the moult has finished.

• Open the bird’s wing and count the first ten feathers, counting from furthest feathers from his/her body first.  These are known as the primary flight feathers and are the only ones that should be cut.
• Cut each feather individually, down level with the covert feathers that provide warmth and protection from the rain.
• Only clip one wing, left or right matters not, as doing both will cancel the action as the wings are balanced again.  They would just have to flap harder to fly if both wings are clipped.

Drawbacks

There are three main drawbacks that I can think of for wing clipping:

• The bird can no longer “fly” out of danger if he/she needs to (or from the top of the hen house ramp!)
• Some protection from bad weather is lost, albeit minimal
• Clipped birds cannot be used for showing, as they will be disqualified.

The chicken will still be able to roost, assuming it is not too high off the ground.