Predators strike back…. How I combated the problem

hey there folks this is josh stoney ridge farmer and this is edna the chicken and edna is going to be our test dummy for today we're going to have some fun today talking about chickens and teach you guys what you need to know to clip your chicken's wings to keep them from flying out of your poultry netting right here so come along as we learn a little bit about chickens and i'll show you some cool awesome contraptions that are on the chicken coop you guys are gonna love this all right folks like i said we really love our chickens on the farm we put up this poultry netting right here and this poultry netting will contain the chickens and allow them to get out here and free range in an area that's probably 10 or 15 times as big as their coop we also every year when we shut the garden down we just open it up to the chickens and let them have at it they eat up all the old tomato seeds and all the old trash and they'll dig through here and find worms and all kinds of stuff so i encourage you to free range your chickens this is a cool way of doing it i'll post links to the poultry netting that we use right here and i'll post links to the automatic chicken coop door that opens when you say to open and closes when you say to close in other words you can set it for sun up to open up and sun down to go down after the birds have gone to bed so this is edna and edna will fly edna will fly out of the chicken coop right here she'll fly right over top of this poultry netting when you clip your bird's wings understand that you are reducing this animal's chances of survival if a predator gets after it so what you want to do is ensure these birds are up every night because they cannot run or fly away from a predator and they can't fly very far but they can fly yeah 30 40 feet to get away from a predator so we're gonna take edna here and we're gonna turn her around she's a very cooperative partner and these are edna's flight feathers right here okay so the flight feathers are right through there and all we have to do is take a pair of kitchen shears that i have right here and we eliminate those flight feathers it's totally painless just like that just leave them in the barnyard just like so that's one wing totally clipped okay one of edna's wings is good to go she is no worse for the wear can you tell edna oh she's cute now we'll show you the other wing okay all we got to do is again stretch out her wings and these are her flight feathers right here okay these long feathers we want to be careful not to hit the tip of her wing bone right here so you can kind of feel and if you have a chicken that's a little less cooperative get a partner to do it you hold the chicken and let the partner do the clipping so we'll take this and we'll just stretch it out just like so no pain no problems just like that okay eliminate the flight feathers now once you eliminate flight feathers you've got to think about something if you've got a roost in your chicken coop right there these birds aren't going to be able to fly up to a really high chicken roost you are such a sweetheart gosh so understand that your chicken roost needs to probably be a little bit over knee high so probably no higher than two and a half or three feet okay so that's how you clip chicken wings to keep your birds inside this poultry netting again i'll post a link to this this is premiere 1 poultry netting and i'll also post a link to the cool door that i'm getting ready to take you over and see and edna is good to go watch be free no worse for the wear edna's awesome so let's go over and show you how to automate your chicken coop the contraptions that we have on this chicken coop we're going to walk around the whole coop and give you guys some cool ideas so this is called the chicken guard and this has been on for about a year now just had to replace the batteries for the very first time there's a button right here you hit for it to go up a button right here you hit for it to go down and then you can program you put the time in and you set it there's also a little photo eye right here that will pick up when it gets dark outside and it'll close the door automatically at night and that's what it's all about when you've got this poultry netting you've got to keep your chickens safe so i'll hit the button right here and you'll see the door go down the door will go down takes about five seconds for it to go down and it runs on a little paracord right here it has little latches at the bottom that hook in so that it will not be broken into by predators you can push up on it all you want to but if you don't use the string it won't go up we'll hit the button for it to raise and again i've had this up here it may be two years old uh that i've had this thing up here i'll post a link to the installation video of this at the end of this video this is our poultry netting right here our electrified poultry netting you need to make sure that you put electricity to this we use a solar intellishock 60 solar charger and that will pop the chicken if it tries to go through the net you don't want to lose your chickens this is all about being safe because once they get out they can't get back in if you've clipped their wings now the best time to probably go in and clip their wings is getting a flashlight and going in after dark once the chickens have gone to roost you can take each individual chicken clip their wings and then provide them with enough light to get back on the roost pole cool well guys i hope you enjoyed this little video i will tell you i had some escape artists already i locked myself in the chicken coop just now and i thought i was gonna have to call my neighbor to get me out it was pretty funny so about six of the chickens are over there and i've got to get them rounded up edna is over here eating grass already this is going to be super cool to have the chickens out here in the garden area and pretty soon we're gonna be putting a greenhouse right here so the chickens can forage inside the greenhouse all winter guys thanks a lot for joining me here on the stoney ridge farm please pound that like button if you'd like more content there'll be links to everything chickens at the end of this video i've got probably 60 videos out on how to raise chickens in your backyard pretty cool stuff everything from getting baby chicks to the perfect chicken coop to how to process them thanks a lot see you next time so the chickens got out of the coop and i can't make them not pace back and forth right here so there are like five chickens out on the other side of the coop over there and i can't get them up there's your blooper right edna edna's cool