Trimming Cockerels Spurs

Spurs can be trimmed back a little to round the ends off, as well as keeping them to a suitable length.

To trim spurs, you will need a sharp pair of cutters. Large dog nail clippers are ideal, or tool shops sell almost identical round cutters that are suitable and a file for rounding the edges off.

Care should be taken that you don't trim too much off. There is a blood vessel that runs down the centre of a spur, usually about ¾ of the way along it that should not be cut.

Trim the point, then keep nipping small pieces off millimetre by millimetre until you see a tiny dot of blood appear in the centre of the spur. This is the blood vessel and is as far as you can go.

Using the file, you can round the edges of the spurs off to make them neat.