I have seen another method where they put a hot baked potato on a rooster's spurs to loosen them and then twist them off. Leaving the quick exposed like that looks more painful to me. I thought I'd show you how it works to trim them with a Dremel rotary tool.
We get the little brown cutting wheels. I'm not sure the specs or part number, but see the photo below. It works like a tiny angle grinder.
You can wrap the rooster in a towel if you wish, but I just hold him tightly with his head under my arm and restrain the leg. My husband uses his free hand to hold the foot as well. It is important that the rooster holds still so you can make an accurate cut.
You want to leave about a half of an inch stub. You don't want to cut too close or flush with the leg. The main goal is to take the sharp tip down so that the rooster won't hurt the hens or himself when he walks or worse, stab someone or another rooster by flogging. It will slowly regrow. I find it sufficient to trim them once a year in the spring before breeding season hits full swing.
The great thing about this method is that it is very quick, minimally painful for the rooster and the speed of the wheel cauterizes the quick and you should have little to no bleeding. Recovery is quicker than the other methods of twisting them off and there is no need to apply medicine or isolate the bird for time to heal.
You can see from the picture below how clean the cut is.
You can see from this angle how the spur had curved back toward the leg. It made a complete U-turn. I've never seen this happen before in my 12 years of chicken keeping. Perhaps he had injured it. The other spur was normal.
All done and no worse for wear. Rocky's ready to go back to his girls.
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