Can Chickens Fly? Learn the Surprising Truth About Chickens and Flight

Unless you spend time a lot of time around chickens, a chicken in flight is something you may never see. Many people believe chickens aren’t capable of flight, but chickens have feathered wings like most other birds. So, unless their wings have been damaged or intentionally altered, they can use those feathered appendages to lift themselves off the ground. Chickens usually can’t fly very high, very far, or for very long. However, most breeds can fly at least a little bit.

Why Can’t Chickens Fly Well?

If chickens can fly, then why can’t they fly very well? This is because chickens tend to be bred for meat, so they have small wings compared to their large bodies. Chickens also have heavy feet compared to most birds. So, their bodies are usually too heavy for their wings to support for long. However, regardless of breed, when chickens are younger and don’t weigh as much, they are frequently capable of lift and flight.

Chickens can also sustain damage to their wings during confrontations with each other. This renders flying more difficult, if not impossible. Chickens have strict pecking orders, and fights can start when someone forgets their place. These fights involve scratching each other with their claws and pummeling each other with their wings.

How Far Can a Chicken Fly?

Some lighter chicken breeds have more than enough wing power to escape their runs and fly up into trees and barn rafters. Two reasonably common breeds, the white Leghorn, whose name was made famous in cartoons, and the Rhode Island White, are considered decent flyers. Anconas, Sebrights, and Bantam chickens are also good flyers.

Chickens typically stay in areas they know are safe. So, they are unlikely to leave their enclosures unless they are startled. However, predators, roosters, and even other chickens can motivate a frightened chicken into flying over a six-foot fence. Chickens have been known to fly distances of around fifty feet at a height of up to 10 feet. The record time for a chicken flight is a paltry 13 seconds, but the distance covered in that time was more than 300 feet.

Why Didn’t the Hens at the Poultry Farm Fly?

In most chicken farming situations, it is a relatively common practice to further restrict a chicken’s flight. This is particularly true in non-free range settings. Chickens can easily fly into trees and escape their runs if their ability to fly has not been restricted. They can also injure themselves, damage each other’s wings, or scratch their handlers. They’re also more vulnerable to predators if they get outside protected areas. Flight restriction is usually achieved by modifying a bird’s wings in one of two ways.

Wing Trimming or Clipping

The first method of stopping a chicken from flying is trimming or clipping the flight feathers. Trimming involves cutting off part of the feathers from the longest part of only one wing. This procedure is temporary and does not typically harm the bird. This hobbles a bird’s ability to fly until their next molt but still allows them to get enough lift to escape predators.

If the bird is a very good flyer, it might be necessary to trim or clip the secondary feathers as well. When done correctly, a chicken feels no pain when you trim or clip its feathers. However, you must ensure the cutting area is past the part of the feather connected to the chicken’s blood supply.

Wing Brailing

One alternative to a clip or trim is known as brailing. Brailing involves binding a single wing of a bird with a strap or cord, to take away its ability to fly. The cord used in this process is known as a brail, which is where brailing gets its name.

This binding procedure is usually performed on younger chickens and in cases where visually altering the wing is unwanted, such as with show birds. It is important to swap the brailing from one wing to the other every week, so as not to permanently injure the animal.

Why Don’t Free-Range Farmers Clip or Brail Their Chickens?

Free-range chickens spend a lot of time in the open. Chickens have a large number of natural predators. Foxes, owls, hawks, coyotes, weasels, bobcats, snakes, and even domestic cats think chicken makes a very tasty snack. If a chicken is left out in the open with no means of flying, they are a much more vulnerable target for hungry predators. So caretakers allow free-range chickens to fly freely as a defense against being eaten.

So, although it might not seem likely from their shape and size, chickens and other poultry birds can indeed fly. Chicken “flight” is not what we typically think of when we say birds are flying. However, even a few feet is enough to fly to safety.