While visiting a small farm in southern Maine years ago, I saw a chicken fly into a tree. It landed on a branch that was at least eight feet off the ground, possibly higher.
We didn’t have hens back then, so I knew little about them. I simply assumed, based on what I observed that day, that free-range chickens often perch in trees when they want a change of perspective. Now, after five years of keeping chickens, observing their habits and researching them, I’ve come to a different conclusion.
Yes, chickens can fly. But they aren’t very good at it. In fact, flight is such a relatively minor part of a chicken’s life that two of the three reference books I consulted while writing this make no mention of it. Gail Damerow’s excellent The Chicken Encyclopedia does, but the entry is understandably brief. In defining what a wing is, Damerow writes that it's a "feathered appendage corresponding to a human arm, a pair of which enables a chicken to fly short distances but is more commonly used for balance during such activities as running or jumping down from a roost."
In other words, a chicken’s wings keep it from falling down more often than they help it to fly up.
I got to thinking about this one morning recently when two of our three hens — Rhode Island Reds Nellie and Hope — flapped their wings quite vigorously while in their pen, shortly after I released them from the coop. The hens were not trying to fly; they know the pen is covered. But this is something “the girls” do quite often first thing in the morning, apparently in much the same way that some people stretch while getting up from bed.
Observing such “wing flaps,” as I call them, shows why flight is not a chicken’s strong suit. Chickens are relatively large birds, but they have short wings in proportion to their size. For example, an adult Rhode Island Red typically weighs a lot more than a red-tailed hawk, but the hawk has an average wing span of four feet. And the chicken? Two feet or less, according to one online source. On those rare occasions when our hens try to make a break for it, they zigzag through the yard like windup toys, running frantically while making no attempt to take flight.
Chickens are beautiful creatures. They're intelligent. Remarkable, even. But aerodynamic? Let's just say it's a good thing they don't have to fly south before winter sets in.
We didn’t have hens back then, so I knew little about them. I simply assumed, based on what I observed that day, that free-range chickens often perch in trees when they want a change of perspective. Now, after five years of keeping chickens, observing their habits and researching them, I’ve come to a different conclusion.
Yes, chickens can fly. But they aren’t very good at it. In fact, flight is such a relatively minor part of a chicken’s life that two of the three reference books I consulted while writing this make no mention of it. Gail Damerow’s excellent The Chicken Encyclopedia does, but the entry is understandably brief. In defining what a wing is, Damerow writes that it's a "feathered appendage corresponding to a human arm, a pair of which enables a chicken to fly short distances but is more commonly used for balance during such activities as running or jumping down from a roost."
In other words, a chicken’s wings keep it from falling down more often than they help it to fly up.
I got to thinking about this one morning recently when two of our three hens — Rhode Island Reds Nellie and Hope — flapped their wings quite vigorously while in their pen, shortly after I released them from the coop. The hens were not trying to fly; they know the pen is covered. But this is something “the girls” do quite often first thing in the morning, apparently in much the same way that some people stretch while getting up from bed.
Observing such “wing flaps,” as I call them, shows why flight is not a chicken’s strong suit. Chickens are relatively large birds, but they have short wings in proportion to their size. For example, an adult Rhode Island Red typically weighs a lot more than a red-tailed hawk, but the hawk has an average wing span of four feet. And the chicken? Two feet or less, according to one online source. On those rare occasions when our hens try to make a break for it, they zigzag through the yard like windup toys, running frantically while making no attempt to take flight.
Chickens are beautiful creatures. They're intelligent. Remarkable, even. But aerodynamic? Let's just say it's a good thing they don't have to fly south before winter sets in.
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