#maicey

She is molting, and she is miserable. You can tell because she is my hen who lives for attention and pictures. She wanted nothing to do with me tonight. She is very clearly telling me to go away and leave her alone until her feathers come back!

Given that Maicey’s favorite rooster is our main rooster, Double Dots, I’m going to assume that it was him.  Dots is a 2 year old golden comet rooster, also known as a gold sexlink.  He does have long spurs, but thankfully not overly long.

Over the last couple of days, in between treating Maicey’s wound and shuttling my son to baseball games, I have been researching the best methods of trimming or removing rooster spurs.

The first is the Baked Potato Method, in which you basically shove the spur into a hot baked potato and keep it there for two-or-so minutes.

This method is demonstrated here:

Another good method is with a pair of pliers, twisting the spur off at the base:

You may also grind them down with a dremel tool, as demonstrated here:

None of these are the method I used. Not because they aren’t all good, but because I knew it was just going to be me and my Girl doing the trimming.

Instead of full removal (baked potato or pliers methods), we went with a simple trim, with dog nail clippers and a metal nail file, and followed the basic instructions, outlined here, by the Chicken Chick, to remove 1/4 – 1/3 of the nail.

After you have decided on a method that works for you and assembled the tools you will need, you need to consider your rooster.  You know him the best, after all.  The videos above are all done in the day time, but a lot of people recommend going to get your rooster at night, in the dark after he has gone to roost.

Why?  Because he will be easier to catch and handle when he is sleeping.

In the case of Double Dots, this is not so much of a consideration.   He is quite possibly the gentlest rooster ever.  I can walk out into the pasture, scoop him up in my arms and carry him around like a toddler.    Pip and the other boys are a bit different, so I’ll have to figure out what works best with them.

I started by plopping Dots in the sink and washing his feet and spurs.   I also took the time to examine his feet for sores or anything else.  You might as well, while you have access to clean chicken feet.

As you can see, Dots just stood there like he was king of the world.   He’s not even bothered that he’s not with his hens, or that he’s in the kitchen, or just had his feet washed.

He’s not causing a fuss or anything.

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Dots’ feet.

This one here – up front on the left – is the offending spur that hurt Maicey. It’s sharper than the other one, for some reason.

His spurs are not as big as some of the spur-removal videos out there, but the one is/was really sharp and pointy.

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Guillotine style dog nail clippers

Nail file

I sat in a chair, wrapped Dots in a towel, and my Girl did the clipping.  She did about 1/4 of each spur, and then used the file to blunt them so they weren’t as sharp.

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See how calm he was?

Filing the spurs so they aren’t as sharp.

My Girl wanted to paint his toe nails, too, because he was just so chill about the whole thing.

Clipped and rounded down.  :-)

I do not anticipate the same experience with Pip.   He lets me pick him, but only if he’s on the window ledge or a roost.  I can’t just walk up and tuck him under an arm like I can his papa.

So again… please take your rooster’s individual behavior and personality into account when you prepare for this.  You know him best.

You may also want to have a styptic powder or corn starch on on hand.  If you cut too far on the spur, you can cause them to bleed, kind of like a dog’s nail will if you cut past the quick.

My Rhode Island Red hens turned five years old today. Next to Double Dots, they are my oldest birds.

This is Maicey. Maicey is a pretty bird who is very spoiled. Can you who in this picture might have spoiled her?

My Girl decided that her favorite chicken needed a little ‘present’ for her birthday, and so yes, Maicey is wearing a pretty necklace. (Don’t worry, we took it off after her…

This is just a brief, no pics update on the status of our coop.

Yesterday morning, I moved Dots’ med cage to sit next to the coop, so he could be seen but not touched. After observing him ‘talking’ to the girls, I decided to leave him there for the day. It would help if they could see him.

When I returned home from work, I gave him his daily supervised visit. There was some chasing, but not bad.

Well, It’s Spring

(We hope it’s spring anyway. Winter has not wanted to give up this year!) And that means the return of green grass and bugs in the chicken pasture… Darcy hunting for something yummy. Chipmunk ♥️ Darcy, still hunting Down by the pond The crowd by the food dish. And broody hens… Yes, my little Pavelle is broody. She is puffed up like a little prickly pineapple and yells at you when you walk by, let…

It looks like her wound is healing nicely.

This is how it looks this morning.  It appears to losing nicely and even though I haven’t treated it since last night, I was able to touch it without her showing signs of distress.

Compared to what it looked like Friday, I’m calling it good and on the mend.

As of last night, Maicey was back to acting like herself and not the scared little rabbit I described in the last post.   She spent most of her exercise time trying to get back into the coop with the rest of the flock, as well as trying to fly into the rafters.

Because, let’s face it, chickens are social animals and she’s been kept away from her family.   Even if it is for her own good.  Which it is, because if we put her back with them before she is better healed, she could get re-injured.

As a compromise, I’ve decided to start letting her out into the tunnels during the day time.  They were built, as you may recall, to help last spring’s brooder babies to integrate with the big ones.   We had them split on the other half of the coop, and the tunnels gave them a place to go outside in a safe an protected environment until the Integration.

Mostly, now they are a place the chickens rarely go.  A change of pace or a place to explore with curiosity.

But for Maicey, they could provide her with more space to walk in, a pace to dig and dirt bathe, green stuff to eat … and yes, access to her friends while she heals.

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The curious thing is, her flock mates have kept her company today. A lot. I’ve been down to check on them several times this afternoon and there have been chickens in the run communing with her all morning.

Also, Dots got his mani-pedi today, too.  I’ll post something about that later.  :-)