Almost had a heart attack tucking the girls in last night!!

[Thorn_shrike]

*disclaimer* bloody pics, but no actual harm done thank god

Every night I do a head count and tuck my girls in and get in some bedtime snuggles before closing up the coop. Last night I went in, looked to the left where the nesting boxes are and saw my big fat chantecler, butter, roosting on the edge of a nesting box. I just changed up their roosts a couple days ago and some of them are still getting used to it. Scooped her up and turned to put her on the roost and saw a ton of blood on the top of one roost!! So much that there were even drips on the floor. I panicked, quickly counted everyone and then saw another big blood splatter on a different section! Everyone was there, no one looked injured. I checked combs, wattles, eyes, then I checked vents….all good. Finally found the culprit, my sapphire gem had blood all over her legs and feet, finally figured out that she had broken off a toenail and had bled that much just from the quick of one nail! Geez

 

[User690263]

Poor girl!
I'm glad she's ok

 

[Chicken_Obsesser]

Oh.....my...............

 

[AxelLovesChickens]

Omg my heart would’ve sank so hard!! Glad she’s okay. It’s crazy how much blood they can lose from those kinds of injuries!

 

[townchicks]

Wow, that would give me a heart attack too.

 

[springvalley123]

I actually had that happen to my dog once. He was "spinning" in circles and caught his toenail in between the slats of the wooden deck/ramp. I'd look for any areas where two pieces of wood come together (perch/wall connections), screws sticking up/not flush, or old screw holes from where you had to adjust the height of a roost, etc. To make sure it doesn't happen again. It might not have gushed instantly, a bird can get a long way in a split second, but I'd follow the trail, or maybe it all started on that rooost?

 

[StinkyAcres]

This happened in my coop recently! I never could find out who was injured; everyone looked fine. But I searched BYC and found that it was most likely blood from a broken nail.

 

[cincyfarmgirl]

Recently, I was gonna remove the spurs on my huge Brahma rooster, Clarence, and evidently I had let them go for too long and they were not releasing easily as they had in the past. They were very resistant and in fact were hard and calcified as a horn that I might’ve found on my goats. So I thought well I’ll trim the spurs at least and then file them down so that they’re not sharp because when he mounted the hens he was causing damage to their backs and they were losing feathers. Well, they bled when I trimmed the ends off of the spurs. Of course, I was already holding him with a towel, which helps him remain calm, so I soaked up the blood and hope that it didn’t hurt him too much. I also trimmed and filed his toenails a little bit so they wouldn’t be quite so sharp.
Does anybody have any suggestions how I can go about removing these very solidified spurs now? In the meantime, I’m keeping him separate from the hands because as I mentioned, he’s causing injury to their backs with his spurs and sharp toenails.