The blog of Hope Grows

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

How To Clip a Chicken's Wings

In order to keep our hens inside the poultry netting it was necessary to clip their wings to restrict how high they can fly. This does not hurt the bird or affect its quality of life in any way.

What we didn't mention was to make sure you don't cut too far down the feather--which can cause bleeding and possibly lead to the death of your chicken (dun dun dun). With a closer look at the feathers, you'll be able to see which part is still alive and which part is more or less like fingernail. Also, you'll want to clip both wings, not just one, and only remove the primary flight feathers.

Believe it or not, this was an extra challenging video to make, it took 8 takes.

P.S. - Thanks Sarah McGann for the camera--video quality has greatly improved.

4 comments:

  1. Dang! I left a comment yesterday and it disappeared! I forgot to verify it. You're most welcome for the camera! So glad it's coming in handy. I told Lee about the shout-out and he said "Was my name there?" :( since technically it was from both of us.

    I also had no idea that's what wing clipping is, seriously....actual clipping! Crazy!

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  2. Wow, you certainly made it look easy. But I bet with all the chickens you have, some of them provided you with a challenge. It is much harder clipping wings when you are doing it on your own. I'd also like to thank you for mentioning to clip both wings. A lot of people suggest clipping just one wing, but that can lead to a bird being very unbalanced and causes the chest muscles to grow unevenly. Plus it just isn't as comfortable.

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  3. 1. Nice haircut, Ari-Anne!!!!

    2. Just reading this (http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/02/backyard-chickens-an-art-a-science-a-social-movement/)

    and thinking of y'all.

    lots of love.

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  4. Thanks all for the comments. This one is our epic YouTube hit - 1300 views. Next stop, Hollywood.

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