As I mentioned in a previous post, we clipped our chickens' flight feathers a few weeks ago.  It was great for a few days; they stayed in their pasture.  After the initial few days of perfectly behaved chickens, just a few were found on our front yard but then as the days passed more and more would be found outside their fenced-in area.  They stuck to just our yard for quite a while, but lately they have been venturing further and further away again as they did before we clipped their wings.

I'm not sure what to do at this point.  With almost fifty chickens a movable "chicken tractor" seems like it would have to be too large and cumbersome to work.  It may be a combination of a few small holes in our fencing that need to be patched and the fact that they can jump up on our wooden gate to escape, both of these things need to be fixed in the next few weeks.  Hopefully that will remedy the problem because we suffered our first loss yesterday due to a wandering hen.  The poor thing was hit by a car when she walked all the way down the road to where our relatively quiet dirt road meets a paved road where people drive way too fast.  It was no suprise, it was just a matter of time really, but it's just so frustrating.

I just don't get it.  We have tons of grass, sun, shade, and plenty of dirt and pebbles in our driveway.  I don't understand what keeps calling these birds away from our yard.  I hope we can get them corralled again soon, I'd hate to lose anymore.