Flying chickens

[chrismahon]

After 7 days penned in during Flubenvet treatment I opened the door and let them out. I have never seen our chickens so excited. Margo, an 18 month old Gold Laced Wyandotte, actually flew from the door to the soil bath area under the hedge. The distance is about 25 yards and she reached an 'altitude' of about 4 feet. Took her about 3 seconds perhaps. Several others followed suit but they only got 2 feet off the ground and 10 yards before touching down with a foot and taking off again to complete the journey -a greatly exaggerated wing assisted run really. Loads of excited squawks by all though.

Margo is partially feathered up after the moult. She isn't laying so she is a bit light anyway and has less feathering, but obviously her flight feathers are new and complete.

I have read that the flight record for a chicken is 12 seconds but I don't know how far it got. Has anyone else had a flying chicken, what breed was it and how far did it get? Suppose there are three separate components to this -height, distance and time in the air.

 

[Marigold]

Our garden is about 150ft long and is divided into 3 sections, with the middle part being largely a pond about 20ft across. More than once, when I have shaken the corn box to call the freeranging hens to come back into the run for food, my 10-month-old Cream Legbar has taken off and flown right across the pond and several more feet across the grass the other side before landing and continuing at a fast run to get there first. this flight would have been about 30ft. The other day she crash landed into the dog, who was quite upset, having learned to avoid the hens ever since one pullet pecked him hard on the nose. I had this little bird when she was 5 week sold, at which stage she could and did fly up and over a 6ft netting dividing the run from the big ones. I had to fasten it to the mesh roof to prevent her getting in to the wrong area, though luckily the adults didn't seem to mind her being there - I had expected them to demolish her. Of course legbars are of similar breeding to leghorns, and are light and small compared with hybrids or my Sussex.

 

[karminski]

i had the same thing to marigold from my leghorn chicks when they were about 6 weeks old , i made them a seprating pen within the main run and blocked of all gaps low down as being tiny i figured thats were they would escape but nope they got up to just under 7 ft which is the height of the run :lol: my big girls were not to bothered by them but trying to catch them was a joke . but the other week one of the new partridge bantams managed to fly approx 24 ft and make it about 5 ft of the ground i was very shocked .

 

[chrismahon]

I would expect a flying record to be held by a legbar or leghorn as our little bantams can clear a 5 foot fence. Bottom (Buff Orpington) when 2 and in the middle of a moult, so wing feathers new and complete, accidentally flew 6 feet into the air and landed in a heap on the driveway. He had intended a wing assisted run to the Orchard after sneaking out of the back door, but over-cooked the wing assistance. I was on the phone at the time and saw a buff chicken appear above the window sill and then disappear so went out to see a dazed Bottom picking himself up off the drive.

 

[karminski]

:lol: :lol: . i love watching my guys its so funny when they crash land into something they look back as if to say who put that there although it does worry me when they hit the fence .

 

[Derculees]

When I first brought the young Bar/Wdot home she flew over the 6' hawthorne hedge due to being bullied, into our neighbours garden. I ran round and she flew back onto my garage roof, I ran back round she took off and landed on the conservatory roof, getting worried now, getting dark, lit up the back lawn with a torch, hopefully to illuminate a landing strip for her, worked a treat. Phew

 

[karminski]

i can just picture that :lol: :lol:

 

[Derculees]

Our garden is about 150ft long and is divided into 3 sections, with the middle part being largely a pond about 20ft across. More than once, when I have shaken the corn box to call the freeranging hens to come back into the run for food, my 10-month-old Cream Legbar has taken off and flown right across the pond and several more feet across the grass the other side before landing and continuing at a fast run to get there first. this flight would have been about 30ft. The other day she crash landed into the dog, who was quite upset, having learned to avoid the hens ever since one pullet pecked him hard on the nose. I had this little bird when she was 5 week sold, at which stage she could and did fly up and over a 6ft netting dividing the run from the big ones. I had to fasten it to the mesh roof to prevent her getting in to the wrong area, though luckily the adults didn't seem to mind her being there - I had expected them to demolish her. Of course legbars are of similar breeding to leghorns, and are light and small compared with hybrids or my Sussex.

I was still laughing at this, as I was writing my little escape bid, it reminded of the dambusters raid, then the music came into my head, and a slow motion vision of your C/Legbar bouncing the last few feet, on the surface of the pond, glad she made it, with her under carriage intact. 08 17

 

[valeriebutterley]

I wrote sometime back about "my high flying Sablepoot" she took off in a panic about something, at about a height of 6ft or so, and would still be going had she not hit a tree and a fence, it wasn't pretend, it was a real flight. I had no idea that any hens flew properly, but Sablepoots do, thank goodness only sometimes.
Today, my granddaughter's Bluebelle flew to me when I called her, did'nt bother with running, so that was another surprise, especially from such a big hen. One of my light Sussex gets airborne sometimes as well, but only slightly.
It does'nt bother me, they all seem pretty territorial, so I assume that they know which way is home!!!

 

[Sue]

My French blue maran took off today from a shelter in their run and flew about 5' landing on top of a buff sussex (much to the sussex's disgust!) causing a chest to chest confrontation. I forgot she would be able to fly now with her new set of wing feathers, they were clipped when I had her!

 

[chrismahon]

That's a good point Sue. I clipped a wing on two of our Leghorn bantams and they have just moulted, so they will be bouncing around the walls of the greenhouse soon. They are so fast, i read somewhere that they are considered a good bet in a fox prone area as they are too fast for them to catch. Problem is though they roost in the trees in Summer and a fox just waits for the first one to come down in the morning -as a friend of mine found out.