Wilbur Lost A Spur

Last night while tending to the chickens, I noticed that old Wilbur, our only rooster in the orchard, was missing a spur.

We watch several vet shows on TV and recently someone brought three roosters in to have their spurs surgically removed. After seeing that show, I thought it was odd that I noticed Wilbur’s left spur is gone!

Wilbur wasn’t wanting to be still for his photo, nor was I wanting to get too close. He’s a good rooster but it’s doubtful he would be happy knowing I was photographing his left leg with the missing spur, and sharing it on the blog for everyone to see.

His spurs were big. Can you see the one on the right leg? It’s a good thing he’s a nice rooster because he could so some serious damage with spurs that large.

Spurs can be removed to avoid the rooster injuring humans, or other chickens, but it can be risky because they can lose a lot of blood. An analogy I’ve read is that it can be like us pulling off a fingernail. Once I had an ingrown toenail removed so I am not putting my roosters through that pain.

Wilbur probably got it caught on something. It’s good I didn’t notice it when it was a bleeding mess or I would have wanted to take him to the vet and I doubt any vets around here work on roosters. More importantly, I doubt Vince would ever have agreed for me to take a rooster to the vet.

It will be interesting to see if the new spur grows to be as big as the old one.