Ever clip actual chicken wings before? Yeah me either. So I found myself in quite a predicament: keep losing chickens or putting my big girl pants on clipping some wings. I think you can guess what I chose….. correct keep losing chickens.
Clearly, I am joking. I read numerous articles and watched YouTube videos on how best to clip wings. Some people do it at night versus first thing in the morning. Some clip one wing while others clip both. Some have helpers and some do it on their own. So here I am trying to figure out the best thing for me and I can tell you this: there is no right or wrong way except just getting the dang task done.
I’ll paint an awesome picture of my first experience because well at the time it wasn’t funny, but now I can look back and laugh. I chose to clip my birds wings at night. As they are nicely roosting on their perch, I decide I will grab them one by one and start the clip-a-poolza. I grab the first one, hold her down between my legs, just enough to extend her wing out to clip. Yeahhhhhhh, she was strong and wiggly. I had to position her multiple times before I could actually get her wing, find the flight feathers (not warming feathers), and cut high enough but not reach the bloodline. So I take my scissors and cut her first wing with much success! Now, while I am so proud of myself on how easy it was, getting her positioned for the other wing was rather difficult. She now was really squirmy and was not about the life without flight feathers. Needless to say, I got her other wing and 10 more of her fellow hens. I could only get half my flock because after all the squawking and them doing everything to get away from me, I chose to stop for the night. This momma was exhausted.
So I still have birds to clip and more lessons to be learned on clipping those beautiful feathers. What I do know is you can do it alone as I have, but it would be easier with two and time would be cut easily in half. Shoutout to my Leghorns, Wyandotte, and Australop for actually being calm and not giving me fits, and my Rhode Island Reds for screaming bloody murder and being as dramatic as possible.
Below are some of my birds. First pic, calm and living life. Second pic, trying to pile on each other to get away from me 😦
Ahahahaha! I’ve never done our chickens, but I’ve done my sister’s parakeet before and it was a real misadventure. My father in law said that you only have to clip one wing per bird to be effective, but I still think I’ll take my chances. I’m not as brave as you!
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You have to at least try once in your life. Just think of the memories 😂
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Excellent point!
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Oh, my! What a job! Hoping you don’t have many left to trim. 😊
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Well I now understand why people do them in the morning so when you get down with one you let that one out. I kept picking up the same hen which let to frustration and eventually decided to quit for the night. I still have at least 10 to go 😂
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Oh, no! Yes, doing it in the morning sounds like a much better idea. 😀
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