How to Trim Chicken Beaks, Claws, and Spurs

A chicken’s spurs, claws, and beak are made of keratin; the same substance as your finger and toenails. This make them grow continually. Chickens in extensive system have their claws and beaks naturally wear down as they grow. But for intensive or backyard system, sometimes chicken beaks and claws grow too long and need to be trimmed. A rooster’s spurs, too, can grow too long for the bird’s comfort or safety.

Beak Trimming
Beak is used by chickens to gather food, explore and manipulating objects in the environment. Beak is also used for preening, nesting and engaging in social interactions. A chicken beak that grows improperly interferes with the chicken’s ability to eat and enjoy other activities necessary for its well-being. Chicken beak trimming is not the same as debeaking which refers to cutting so much from a beak that it remains permanently short to prevent cannibalism.

How To Trim Your Chicken’s Beak

* Wrap your chicken in a towel. This should keep them calm and stop them flapping.
* Take hold of your chicken's head. Be quite firm as you don’t want them to suddenly move.
* Use nail clippers, dog nail clippers are the best but any sort of nail clippers will work
* Trim the top of the beak back till it just slightly overhangs the bottom part of the beak.
* Use a file to file any sharp or jagged edges.

Note: Make sure you do not clip the ‘quick’. The quick is the darker portion of the beak. The ‘quick’ has blood nerves and cutting it will hurt your chicken. Having one person hold the chicken and one person clip the beak makes it a much easier and quicker process.

Claw Trimming
A chicken uses its claws to scratch the ground for food and also to scratch an itch. When a chicken doesn’t have hard surfaces to scratch against, the nails continue to grow until they curl, and then the chicken cannot walk properly.

How To Trim Your Chicken’s Claws

It is unlikely that you will have to clip your chickens nails as they naturally keep them short by scratching around in your garden. If the claws are curling round then they will need trimming.
* Wrap your chicken in a towel to calm it and stop it flapping. If you have two people one person should flip the chicken over on to its back and place it in their lap. You should hold the legs firmly. You may need to wait for your chicken to relax into this position.
* Once your chicken is calm and not moving, you can wipe away any dirt or mud to make for easier trimming.
* The person doing the clipping of the nails should hold the toe between their finger and thumb and with the other hand clip about an either to a quarter of an inch off.

Tips: It is better to take off a smaller amount rather than a large amount to avoid cutting the quick which will cause pain to your chickens and will make the claw bleeding.

Spur Trimming
Cocks use their spurs as weapons for fighting each other and for fighting off predators. Most hens have little rudimentary knobs instead of spurs, although some have real spurs that can grow quite long. And some hens get pretty feisty, although you’d be hard pressed to find a hen with spurs as lethal as those of an attack rooster.

The spur is an outgrowth of the leg bone, covered with the same tough keratinous material that makes up claws and beaks. The spur starts out as a little bony bump. As the rooster matures, the spur gets longer, curves, hardens, and develops a sharp pointed tip.
Chicken's spur can also be trimmed using nail clippers, dog nail clippers or any sort of nail clippers because overly long spurs may affect a cock’s ability to walk and to breed. Spurs are dangerous to other chickens and humans. Spurs may be trimmed to prevent injury to the bird’s handlers, to prevent the wounding of hens during breeding, to minimize injury in peck-order fights, and to spruce up an older cock for exhibition. A spur that curls back into the bird’s leg must be trimmed to prevent lameness. Just ensure that you don't cut the quick when trimming your chicken's spur.

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Cited Works
1.) Trimming Beaks, Claws And Spurs - https://countrysidenetwork.com/daily/poultry/feed-health/
2.) Chicken Beak and Claw Trimming - https://www.omlet.co.uk/guide/chickens/chicken_care/