Surrounded as they were by a
vast field of rye, our second batch of chicks still managed to
get into trouble by the time they reached five weeks old. Despite
the fact that we’ve raised several other sets of chicks in this
same spot over the last two years with all of them staying
earth-bound, our current flock thought it would be a good idea to fly
up into a young peach tree and run along the limbs.
To be honest, the
youngsters probably weren’t causing much trouble there (and might have
even been eating pest insects), but they were also ranging further
afield, and our strawberries are in the next zone over. No way do
I want chickens eating up those berries we slave and dream over all
year.
So we loaded them up…
…and rolled them out.
Our miniature flock is
now fenced into chicken
pasture 1, which
hasn’t yet been grazed this year and is a chickweed
paradise. I suspect the chicks will run through the
delicacies in about a week, at which point, we’ll have to put on our
thinking caps again. For now, we’re leaving the brooder on the
yellow wagon for easy movement.
further afield tempts our youngsters to explore their whole pasture
quickly.
There’s a easy way to prevent this: clip one wing. Put the hen in your lap (easier to do this at night when they’re sleepy) and spred out one wing. See how there are two bunches of long feathers? The ones at the bottom part of the wing (the longest) are for flying. Take a pair of sharp sissors and cut them off. Do this to only ONE wing so it thows the chicken’s ballance off when she tries to fly. If you’re a bit uncomfortable with doing this for the first time, go on U-Tube (or however they spell it) and watch a few films on it. Just like dog and cat nails, feathers have a quik, which is the part with blood in it. If you cut the quik in a chicken the only way to stop the bleeding is to pull out the feather. Reach down to where the feather grows out of the bird and give it a hard yank. The feather will then grow back.
Wing cutting will have to be repeated after the feathers grow back so keep an eye on them.
Sally — We do clip the wings of the few laying hens we have who fly over the fences, but don’t feel it’s worth the bother with broilers. They’re only around for three months, so I just use management to keep them where they’re supposed to be, if possible.