Update on the Roosters

I wanted to give you a quick update on the roosters one day after their spurs were removed...

But first, I just read Knatolee's World blog, and about died laughing when I saw her post of a wrinkly egg!!!

This is the craziest egg I've ever seen - you should check it out for a quick laugh!

I love to be entertained by our chickens!

Ok, back to the rooster saga here at Razzberry Corner...

After we removed the roosters' spurs yesterday afternoon, the boys went back into the chicken pen and appeared to not mind the procedure. They walked around and crowed like nothing happened. We fed then some veggie treats, they bragged to the hens and ate just like normal.

The only thing is, their spurs bled more than was mentioned online. It worried me. The blood ran down onto their feet. We put sugar and styptic powder on the wounds after the procedure. The sugar worked better than the styptic powder to control the bleeding. Several times we brought each of them back into the house, washed their legs, and reapplied sugar. Eventually, after a couple hours they stopped bleeding. I did not mean to cause pain or issues for my roosters, by any means. I am just trying to help my hens who are getting beat up by the roosters.

None of the other birds pecked the boys' bloody legs, and the boys really didn't seem to act any differently during this time. In fact, because I was constantly monitoring the chickens every half hour yesterday afternoon, at one time I saw a pullet named Genny (after my friend Genny at the Downeast blog) who had blood on each side of her back on her wings. I bought Genny inside and bathed her back and looked at her wings, and then realized, she wasn't bleeding, it came from one of the roosters. The roosters were still having sex with the hens, even after their spur-removal procedure! As the afternoon passed I noticed quite a few hens and pullets had the tell-tale blood on their backs, so alot of chickens got baths yesterday. We tried to lock up the roosters in the coop, but they started flying around and insisted they go back outside. Maybe we should have done the procedure at nighttime when everyone was calm and no sex was happening.

The roosters appear to be doing ok today. Their new short spurs are healing, although Muffin appears to be healing faster than Leggy.

Hopefully the hens' backs can start healing now.

Lucy with rooster damage