The last second chance
We've been having trouble
with one of our hens flying over the 5 foot high pasture fence.
It's the first time we've had
to clip a chicken's wing, and we both considered this a last option, but
she's had more than one second chance.
Some folks say to just clip
one side, which prevents flight due to imbalance but still gives them a
few extra inches of feather punch on the other side if they have an
encounter with a predator. If she keeps flying over we'll clip the
other side.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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My observation is that clipping one wing causes imbalance in flight, clipping both just makes flight more difficult, but often not impossible for getting over a fence.
I have also seen a chicken that figured out how to compensate for the imbalance caused by one wing being clipped. The person doing the clipping always did the right wing. Switching to clipping the left wing fixed the issue. So I suggest alternating wings.
If it keeps on escaping it may be best to have a fresh chicken for dinner, before it gets eaten by something else.