Rooster Spurs

Today was spent working on the chicken house. We let the birds free again for most of the day and they enjoyed scratching around in the mud. We had to isolate Cockzilla as both roosters are molting at the moment, but 'zilla barely has any feathers left and the hens are picking at him - poor guy :( He is now in the brooder box located in the garage until he get some feathers back and begins to look at little healthier.

The other day I noticed that both rooster's spurs located on their legs have grown very long. So I did some investigating into how to remove or trim them. So we decided to use our rooster Lucky as the test subject.

It turns out that there are two ways:

1) Using pliers at the base the spur, press down until you hear a crack and then wiggle/twist them off. The drawback in this method is that underneath the outer sheath is still a sharp spur. A few drops of blood will be spilled.

2) Use a hacksaw, dog nail clippers or Dremel to cut of the spur. Careful not to cut it too short or it will bleed. Also the spur is fairly brittle when being trimmed.

Either way, the spur will grow back or continue to grow.

We decided to do the clipping method so that later the hens won't be injured when mounted (it is springtime after all!)



Well, I am pleased with the video and it even appears as if we know what we're doing! This is the first time for trimming spurs and it really was pretty easy.