The Country Mice

Our chickens live a good — if somewhat truncated — life.

Their home-on-the-range lifestyle allows them plenty of room to forage and explore.

Señor Coyote, as pictured above in this springtime portrait, knows well the delights of the all-you-can-eat free-range buffet and has cleaned us out to the very last feather more than once.

At various times we’ve contained and corralled, cornered and coerced our feathered friends attempting to keep them a little closer to home.

Inevitably, they fly the coop.

And these wild-eyed weirdos are particularly prone to upward mobility, soaring over our standard-issue five-foot-high chicken wire fence.

But no more.

For today’s lesson, class, we are going to seriously ground these vertical vagabonds. Please prepare a pair of sharp scissors, get a firm grip on your subject, and —

The process sounds more ghastly than it is.

Fowl (and feel free to try this on your cockatiel) have a couple of sets of feathers, one of which is used for flight.

It is those primary feathers that we will be removing today.

First of all, you will need to take a deep breath.

Second, ensure your assistant has a firm grasp on the customer. Remember, it’s like a haircut.

Spread out the bird’s wing, and — *snip*.

That first *crunch* is a bit unnerving but you’ll notice, La Poule doesn’t appear to have noticed.

A little farther along, all appears well.

A nice clean line, just the way my mother used to cut my bangs.

Some extra trimming to make the trip worthwhile.

With my schedule it is *such* a bother to make regular trips to the salon.

Nice clean ends mean a good cut.

If these ends were bloody — not good. That would have meant we’d cut a blood feather, one that is still connected to the bird’s circulatory system.

As feathers grow, they are nourished through the bird’s blood supply via a very thin vein that runs through the shaft. If a blood feather’s shaft becomes broken the whole shaft must be removed to stop the bleeding.

But we’re all fine and dandy here. No blood.

All your primary flight feathers have been removed, ma’am.

Yup, reminds me a lot of getting my bangs cut.

By the way, we clipped only one wing. The theory is that with one wing clipped, the bird will be imbalanced and not able to get airborne.

With two wings clipped

maybe

(flap flap)

if I just flap harder

(flap flap-flap flap)

and faster

(flap-flap flap-flap-flap)

I might get over

(flapflapflap)

the fence

(flapflapflap)

after all!

(flapflapflapflap flapflapflap)

Whew! I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

That reminds me. Need to call to get my hair cut this week.