Trimming Chicken Toenails

[Knaack]

Some of our chickens have very long toenails that curve. Can they be safely trimmed? How do you know how much to cut off?

 

[sunflour]

Yes they can be safely trimmed. A lot easier if someone helps you. And wrapping the chicken in a towel makes it a lot easier.

If you can see the pulp = pink flesh in the proximal nail, try not to cut that. But even carefully cutting, you may see some bleeding, so have things ready.

I went thru human toenail clippers and pet guillotine clippers and both failed. I bought scissors type nail clippers for Large Dogs and they work great.

Have styptic powder on hand so if you get bleeding it can be stopped fairly easily. Personally found a little pressure with a tissue on the tip works well enough.

** if you are unsure where the pulp is , then just take a little off at a time about a 1/4 of an inch and repeat the trimming every week or so til the nails are down to normal length.