Wing Clipping

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
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Anonymous

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I said I would not clip their wings but having seen them flap up onto the top of their house, which is the same height up to the top of the fence between me and my neighbour. Gasp, Horror. I have given in to my worries, (my neighbour has a large dog) and clipped the right wing of both of my ladies. It was surprisingly easy to do. I stood each lady in turn on the garden table, tucked her head under my arm. Stretched the wing out, counted ten feathers, apologised profoundly and chopped them off half way up. I was more stressed than they were!!
As soon as they were put down off they went beating up the plants in my garden. Think I will move the house away from the fence just to be on the safe side.!
 
How do you clip the flight feathers? I am looking to do mine? Both side of my house have large dogs and I have a net over my pen and its not very practical?
 
Problems do arise when the time comes for the hens to try to moult the clipped feathers. For some reason, they don't fall out when they should. I did clip the wings of my first three hens, before i had more secure accomodation for them, and they were never able to replace them properly.
 
I only clip wings off the naughty ones! I don't have a high fence so easy enough for them to fly out! They know they are not supposed to but there's always a few that do, so they get clipped. It's very easy and not stressful at all for them. It can be more stressful for the owner but has never bothered me as I know they don't feel anything really. It's easy to do, if you stretch the wing you want to do out from the tip of the wing you can count 10 big feathers from the end inwards. Those are the feathers you need to clip. Be careful not to clip too short as they do have blood supply in the feathers and they will feel it if you cut the blood vessel. My advice for a first timer is to clip a little bit to start so you feel more comfortable with it then you can clip more. About half is enough. Hope that helps nymnymsuxx
 
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