Unsecure chicken perches

[hilda-and-evadne]

My Light Sussex is four years old. Over the last few months, she has grown spurs, and these are now about an inch long. I have read up on the web about why this happens but am still not clear about if I should do anything to them. I read that one can clip off 5/8 inch but I would not like to risk that because the spurs look as if they are an extension of the leg and might have blood vessels all the way to the end. But the end of one spur is starting to turn down into hook shape, and I read that if left to grow it might injure the hen eventually.

 

Any advice welcome.

 

TVIA

Rachel

[Looney]

Old Doris has impressive spurs but I never considered doing anything about them as I can't see that they cause a problem to her or to the other chickens. I guess you could just keep an eye on them, hopefully someone will have advice about actually clipping them if you need to. I would be a bit nervous about attempting it.