Chicken pedicures?

[Jamie Molihan]

I recently watched a documentary about show chickens and saw that people were clipping chicken nails and beaks.mso this is a thing? Am I supposed to do that? What if I accidentally cut off a toe. Would they be ok if I didn’t do this?

 

[JaeG]

Sometimes it's necessary, especially if birds are confined to a run and can't scratch and peck about as much and wear down their nails and beak. It's the same as clipping a dogs nails where you are only taking off a bit so as not to make the quick bleed. Dog nail clippers are the easiest to use and I only do it when necessary (though I've never had to trim a chicken beak I have needed to trim the odd quail beak).

 

[Jamie Molihan]

Man! How on earth do you learn to trim a chicken beak? YouTube?

 

[Lazy Farmer]

What is the need for said pedicure? We once took in a stray white leghorn who obviously lived most of it's life in a cage. Once we quarantined and made sure she was not going to bio hazard our flock, we released her in population and the sandy run naturally trimmed her beak and feet. Didn't take long. Chickens will strum their beaks back and forth in the sand. The poor little thing is living the good life now.

 

[rosemarythyme]

No reason to trim beaks or nails unless there's an issue. One of my birds had a beak that was slight misaligned (very mild crossbeak) so I used a nail file to keep the overlapped side worn down as well as the tip, to make it easier for her to eat.

 

[BeepersNChickChick]

I trim my chickens beaks and nails once in a while if they need it. My rooster used to get overgrown nails and his spur would get too long. He would let me flip him over and literally file his nails while in my lap. I had to watch I didn’t get too close and make them bleed. The beaks I would trim a little if they got too long and then file them smooth.