We've noticed that many of our hens are getting scratched during mating, so we decided sand down lead rooster Fluffy's spurs a little bit. Although you would think that chickens could use their beaks for self-defense, they really just rely on their spurs to fight off predators. Once we caught Fluffy, we put a towel over his head to reduce the stress and I went to work with a sanding bit on my Dremel tool while Dionne held him steady. I was surprised that there was some bleeding almost immediately after I began sanding (I thought the spurs were solid bone or keratin), but it stopped quickly. We ended up just rounding the spurs a little bit in the end.
