October 2, 2025 • 36 mins
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Veterinarian Dr. M joins the Poultry Nerds Podcast to unpack chicken genetics and practical care: what vaulted skulls mean in crested breeds (Silkies, Polish), how to safely trim spurs (and what not to do), the real role of combs and wattles in heat regulation, why Vaseline doesn’t prevent frostbite, and humane tips for beak/nail maintenance. We also bust common myths—like “no wattle = sterile rooster”—and discuss caponization, turkey snoods in commercial flocks, and managing rooster behavior responsibly. Perfect for backyard keepers, show breeders, and gamefowl enthusiasts who want science-based, hands-on guidance.
What you’ll learn
- Vaulted skulls in crested breeds: risks, handling, and prevention
- Spur trimming: seeing the quick, filing vs. cutting, infection risks
- Combs & wattles: heat dissipation, frostbite realities, dubbing context
- Winter care: ventilation vs. moisture, recognizing frostbite stages
- Beak & nail care: scissor beak management, safe filing, feeding tips
- Myth-busting: wattles and fertility, rooster aggression management
- Caponization cautions and when to consult a vet
Keywords: chicken podcast, poultry podcast, vaulted skulls silkies, chicken spur trimming, combs and wattles, chicken frostbite prevention, beak trimming chickens, scissor beak chickens, rooster aggression, caponization, turkey snood, chicken health, backyard chickens, gamefowl care, poultry husbandry
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jennifer (00:01):
Welcome poultry nerds.
We are back with our favoriteveterinarian, Dr.
M.
Carey (00:08):
I mean outta respect I've had my name misspelled a lot,
and if I type hers really fast.
Don't pay attention.
Autocorrect will misspell it forme.
Dr. Morishita (00:20):
How did they spell it?
Carey (00:22):
There's two or three different ways.
One of them involves a fourletter word being put at the end
instead of where it should be,and it's okay.
I just have to be careful withit.
So when I type it out, I just doDoctor M'cause
Jennifer (00:38):
I don't wanna mess up.
And then automatically wants toput an H in Theresa too.
Carey (00:43):
Yeah.
Jennifer (00:45):
So Dr.
M, are you okay with Dr.
M?
Sure.
It sounds like you're, MI six ona James Bond movie.
Okay.
So we are gonna talk about somephysical traits today that we
see in all kinds of species, Iguess, right?
Dr. Morishita (01:06):
Yeah.
Every species has little.
Issues.
Jennifer (01:10):
Yep.
So the first thing we're gonnatalk about is vaulted skulls.
So nothing I have has a vaultedskull.
Carey (01:19):
Yeah.
I don't have any crested birdsUhuh.
Jennifer (01:22):
So tell us about'em, will you?
Dr. Morishita (01:26):
Well, you know, the vaulted skulls are most
prominent in silkies.
Carey (01:32):
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Morishita (01:32):
But they also have an encrusted birds, so like
polish as well.
Jennifer (01:38):
There's a crested duck too, isn't there?
Dr. Morishita (01:40):
So what is Ed skulls?
Yes.
So that means they have a veryweakened area on the top of
their skull where their crestis.
And, um, this is like a geneticmutation.
It's an abnormality that was.
Spread into these type of birds.
(02:01):
Um, so what happens is that it'salmost like the brain protruding
out, but it is covered with athin skeleton.
but it's very thinner.
And you know, just in general,as we work with our birds, we
know that birds were built asflying machines.
So their bones are reallyfragile and thin.
(02:24):
They support the structures, butthey are thin.
If you compare the skeleton of abird to that of a mammal, a dog,
cat, or cow, we know theirskeletons are heavier because
birds by evolutionary was madeto be flying machines.
So everything is compact,reduced, and thin wall.
(02:48):
That makes sense.
So the best that I can do toexplain that is that if we feel
our own head, so let's feel thetop of our heads and the side,
you can feel that your skull isvery thick, right?
Mm-hmm.
My wife says
Carey (03:05):
that mine's really thick sometimes,
Dr. Morishita (03:07):
it's good to have thick because it's protecting
your brain.
But, so if we think of on ourskull, everything feels hard
except if we go to the temple.
So the temple, if you take youreyes and move it towards the
side, towards your ear, just alittle north of that area is the
temple.
(03:28):
So if you feel your temple, youcan feel that it's a little
softer there, right?
And so you often hear that ifyou have children and babies,
you have to watch out andprotect the temple because
that's the weakest spot of theskull.
So think about this, for ourbird skull.
Now the bird skulls are verymuch thinner.
So if I were to take a birdskull and if I'm trying to find
(03:51):
out why they die, I can use aregular, like a surgical
scissors.
Just insert it and I can cutaround over the whole brain and
remove it.
If I were to do a mammal, youneed a bold, no scissors.
cut the brain so you can alreadysee the different thickness.
So for the birds, what we haveis temple, which is our weak
(04:14):
spot.
And so if people, hurt orpuncture something in the
temple, sometimes you can have afatal injury Crested births like
Silky or Polish, when they'reborn as chicks, if you see them
as chicks, they have like alittle protrusion on the top.
It's covered by a skull, butthat skull area is very thin, so
if they fall or they get somekind of trauma there, it can
(04:38):
often be fatal as well Okay.
That's just a uniquecharacteristic of the breed.
You know those would crestedfeathers.
Jennifer (04:48):
Can you, what would be the downside to it?
Can it be like Too vaulted?
Like what's the downside tobeing
Dr. Morishita (04:57):
vaulted injury to the brain?
Because that area covering thatlittle skeletal area, covering
it is very thin wall, and so ifsomething hits their head, they
can have brain injury, which canoften,
Jennifer (05:13):
that explains a lot with the silkies.
What have you experienced?
I don't have silkies.
Carey (05:22):
Yeah, I don't have silkies either.
But you know, I've oftenwondered sometimes if.
People were like, they're theanimals.
They keep,
Dr. Morishita (05:32):
oh, well, you know, silkies are very unique
too.
'cause they got black flesh andtheir feathers are like, without
structure.
Carey (05:42):
So for me, like the Silkies and the Creeger, which
is another one that's like that,I think they're fascinating
because when I look at'em,especially the Creeger.
Because they're black.
It reminds me of eighties rockand the hairbands.
Jennifer (06:05):
I think you're talking about Polish.
Carey (06:08):
I mean, they all have the hair.
Oh.
It's like, it's like everywhere,you know, on their head.
And you know, back in theeighties when they had the
hairbands is what I called'em.
Yeah.
You know, they had the hair,like they would tease their hair
out.
Wayne's world,
Dr. Morishita (06:24):
well, some of'em are very beautiful, but you
know, in order to breathe likethat, this is a genetic defect
that was bred in, interesting.
Carey (06:33):
So do you have to take special precautions to keep
stuff from hurting their head
Dr. Morishita (06:40):
Well, it's especially like this chick.
it is, you have to do it becauseit's a thin area, so.
If they fight among orsomething, you know, whatever
they bang their head, they'reare prone to neurologic
problems.
So that's why they, they oftensay Silkies have neurological
issues, you know?
Mm.
Because of the damage.
(07:01):
But it's no more different thanif you had, you know, those
little wine marons, those littlesausage dog or Bassett hounds,
you know, where they're longer,where they got short little
legs.
Mm-hmm.
When you got the long back likethat, those.
Dogs are prone to like spinaldamage,
Carey (07:19):
yeah.
Dr. Morishita (07:21):
So it's all, and that's a mutation too, you know,
little pugs or Frenchy bulldogsor have those cat their nose
pressed into their face and theyhave breathing problems.
So these are all part of thegenetic mutation.
People like the looks of them,but they do have medical issues,
Jennifer (07:39):
oh, right.
That makes more sense now.
Okay.
the next physical trait we wannatalk about is removing the
Spurs.
That seems to be prettycontroversial, so can you do it
safely?
Dr. Morishita (07:53):
The, you would need to trim it.
You can never remove the sparespur entirely because if you
look at one of my handouts,which you guys post it.
It's called Medical Managementof the Rooster of the Spur.
Carey (08:08):
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Morishita (08:09):
It's in those handouts and so in that.
You will see an x-ray of anactual foot that I taxidermy.
And then another one is theactual foot itself.
So when you look at it, the spurthink of it as a material
similar to the beak.
Our fingernails horn.
(08:31):
It's, it's keratin, mystructure.
And so technically like afingernail, like take your
finger, put it up to the sun.
You can, you can't see throughwhere your flesh is, but you can
see like white clear errorswhere you can see your
fingernails, right?
Mm-hmm.
So you will need to just cutthat fingernail area.
(08:55):
And if your fingernails are cutvery close to your meat, you
won't see any of like maybewhite, white, translucent areas
when you put your hand up to thesun.
Just think about it.
You wouldn't want a dogguillotine cutter to cut it.
You don't wanna cut it becauseyou don't know where your flesh
is and then it's gonna bleed.
So just like, our trim, our dogtoenails and cat toenails, um,
(09:21):
you have to want chow whereyou're clipping so that you
don't clip the quick K-W-I-C-K,which is where the blood vessels
shoot out.
So some people, if they want to,they can't cut the spur out
entirely because if you look atthat photograph, there's a bone
in there.
(09:42):
So if you do a guillotine cut,you're actually cutting bone.
You'll be having an open, like afracture, and so mm-hmm.
Bacteria can go in there becauseyou know it's on the foot.
So they're gonna be near theground, their poop or whatever.
Bacteria can get in there andyou can have some infection of
the bulb.
Which is bad for the bird.
Carey (10:05):
Yeah, that'll be really bad.
Dr. Morishita (10:06):
Yeah.
So the best way to do is yougotta hold your bird up.
You can take it to a dark roomor shine, a bright light, like
you do for, um, ling and seewhere you have the, um, where
you can see that it's just thenail.
Then maybe put a little sharpiepen, permanent marker there.
(10:29):
So when you take your bird out,you can just get like a drill
and um, kind of sand that down.
You could use your guillotinecutters, but again there's
different type of dog nailclippers, so you'd have to get
the INE one, but you've gottamake sure that you see it, you
(10:49):
know?
Rems are always some of thebetter tools to use.
I think if people are not usedto, you might get some training
from, you know, yourveterinarian or something or do
that because you never, it'spain.
It's pain.
I think the old method, peopleused to like try to take, twist
(11:09):
it off, not a good thing.
It's like pulling out yourfingernail.
You know that sore
Carey (11:16):
ow Like the thought of that just,
Dr. Morishita (11:20):
yeah.
You see we're talking about liketorture topics today.
Carey (11:23):
Yeah.
Dr. Morishita (11:24):
Yeah.
Carey (11:24):
So I cheat the brain when I have to trim spurs, I use a
piece of five eights inch thickaluminum, got holes drilled in
it.
And it's on a piece of flat bar,so it is screwed to a piece of
wood out in the chicken yard.
And I stick the spur throughthat and I have a really, really
(11:48):
fine tooth saw, and I cut itwith that because five eights of
an inches more than past thatquick part Like I've had ingrown
toenails before and that justseems like an extreme amount of
pain.
So I err on the side of cautionwhen it comes to cutting those,
(12:12):
because that's gotta hurt.
Dr. Morishita (12:16):
When you think about it, why do they have
spurs?
They have spurs for defense.
You know, they're defendingtheir hen flock or something,
right?
So in order actually, like, theyalways say like, do you really
want aggressive roosters?
You know, I mean, the reallyaggressive ones that, you know,
you might have to take the topof a trash can and or carry a
(12:41):
broom when you're out there.
But, one of the ways that youcan manage from having
aggressive rooster is.
You might probably don't wantjust one rooster.
If you can have more birds, thenyou probably wanna have two
roosters, because then theyfight among themselves and they
don't fight with you fordominance, but then you have to
think about if you haveroosters, if you have little
(13:01):
kids around your children oryour grandchildren, you don't
wanna have very aggressiveroosters moving, and it's not
their fault.
They're not aggressive, they'rejust being protective of their
HeLOCK.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's a natural thing.
It's a visual thing that, youknow, it maybe the females are
more attractive to, um, not onlyby the combs and wattles, but
(13:26):
also maybe the size of theirspurs too, but so always think
about, are there other ways Ican use, or do I want to breed
aggressive birds, into theflock.
So always know what other thingsyou can do to manage that,
because, I'm sure nobody wantslike a fingernail pulled out.
Ugh.
(13:47):
Quit saying that.
We trim it, you know, just the,
Carey (13:50):
all of that just sends chills on my spine,
Dr. Morishita (13:54):
file it down, you know.
But really in the action of adefense, and I've only read.
Someone like in Southeast Asia,I believe it was Thailand,
there's a report of somebodybeing killed by the spurs of a
peacock and they were feedingthem and they were like in a
confined area.
So if you do have veryaggressive, sometimes maybe you
(14:19):
need to wear hats or don'tcorner them to make them feel
defensive.
You know, because even if youtrim your spur or if it's a
sharp spur, that blood thing canalso go into your temple too,
Carey (14:37):
yeah.
It's just
Dr. Morishita (14:37):
instead of being a pokey thing, puncturing you,
it'll be a dull puncture, youknow?
So if you need to haveaggressive rooster, you might
wear.
Protective covering around youror something,
Carey (14:51):
Keep your head on a swivel when you're out there
taking care of them.
Dr. Morishita (14:54):
Yeah.
You gotta watch.
Jennifer (14:56):
Alright, well let's move to the other end and talk
about Combs.
Combs, well, Combs and waddles.
So can you tell us about thepurpose of the combs and
Waddles?
Dr. Morishita (15:08):
Well, the combs and Waddles are like you know, I
would say they would have twofunctions.
One would be that they arevascularized, which means they
have a lot of blood vesselsthere.
And so oftentimes you can seelike the different colors of the
combs.
Some are pale, some when they'recold or whatever, but usually
when they're active it's brightred'cause there's a lot of blood
(15:32):
vessels there.
And so like combs and models.
They help to dissipate the heatbecause as you know, birds
cannot sweat and so they helpdissipate the heat for the bird.
They're also for attracting thepens, you know, the more
(15:52):
dominant roosters have probablylarger combs, brighter red, and
that would be attracted to thehead.
Except in the case, if you onlyhave one rooster, it really
doesn't matter, I guess.
Right?
Jennifer (16:06):
Yeah.
Carey (16:07):
They don't have a lot of choices then
Jennifer (16:11):
what about dubbing them, cutting off the cones and
waddles?
Dr. Morishita (16:16):
So the question is, why would we want to cut off
the combs and waddles andprobably fighting among.
Head makes or damage to thehome.
Mm-hmm.
The other thing is that if youare involved in gamecock
fighting, you probably wanna dubthat because that are areas of
(16:40):
the birds, this is a illegalactivity, but you might do that
so that when they're fighting, Iguess they don't attack that
part or get a hold of the birdand then, jab'em with the spurs.
Mm-hmm.
So you would see dubbing in thatprobably for those, or for those
(17:01):
people raising old word gangbirds.
Maybe they, some people preferit dubbed or
Carey (17:06):
not.
Dr. Morishita (17:07):
Other people might dub because they're
worried about frostbite.
But if you're gonna be dubbedthat thing in an adult bird.
Is full of blood vessels.
That ain't gonna be a prettysite cutting that off, maybe
cutting.
It'd be like similar to cuttingyour ear lobe.
Jennifer (17:27):
Okay.
So what age do you dub them?
Dr. Morishita (17:30):
I would say that you would dub them early on when
they're very young and it's not.
You just use a, like a dubbingscissors or regular surgical
scissors and cut it aseptic,which is clean.
And then you would cut it off.
(17:52):
Um, people don't know theprocedure.
You can always talk to yourveterinarian, but you know, we
try to do, if only if you reallyneed it,
Jennifer (18:01):
I would imagine that hurts.
Dr. Morishita (18:04):
Yes.
Like maybe cutting off your earwall.
Jennifer (18:07):
Yes.
I don't know, I don't have thesekinds of animals, so I just, I
know these questions are outthere because it gets done, but
they don't have firsthandknowledge with it.
Carey (18:18):
Well, I know like people that show game foul, part of
their standard.
Requires that adult birds betrimmed, which I always thought
was weird, but yeah,
Dr. Morishita (18:35):
you probably wanna do it in a day of age.
When they're small, there's someblood vessels of course, but not
a lot.
And a bigger wound, you know, Iknow turkeys, some are deputed.
especially in commercialproduction, they have a little
sno just above their externalbetween their eyes in that
(18:57):
little fleshy tag.
usually they remove it incommercial production day of
age.
then they won't have that large,dangling because if your
property has.
This bacteria called syphilis.
it can cause that sno to getinflamed and swollen like a
sausage male turkeys are alwaysfighting each other and see that
(19:23):
dangling like a worm.
So they're attracted of like,pecking at it.
that's how the bacteria gets inthere.
makes swollen.
And unfortunately the birds diebecause bacteria goes septic
throughout the body.
Jennifer (19:38):
Well, I have a lot of turkeys and I just learned
something completely new.
I had no idea people cut theirSNS off
Dr. Morishita (19:46):
for the commercial ones.
Where you have a lot of turkeysin a building
Carey (19:51):
like the broad breasted.
Type that are bred forcommercial production, like
they'll cut those off,
Dr. Morishita (20:00):
Because, you know, they have a lot of turkeys
in a confined area and as theygrow and mature into the Tom
Turkeys, you're gonna see thatlike little worm moving around
and they'll start pecking attheir pen mates, peck at each
other.
You might not see that inbackyard flocks because most
people would want to.
See the smooth and they probablymore access to space.
(20:26):
Or they don't have that manymales together.
As you know, in any birdspecies.
The males are more aggressive toeach other.
Jennifer (20:34):
Okay, so in the winter time, does Vaseline really help
prevent frostbite on the wattlesin the C?
Dr. Morishita (20:42):
Well, initially you might think because, oh oil,
we keep the coal away, but itreally doesn't because if we
remember earlier on that birdsdo not sweat and remember I was
telling you about the comb.
That's how they dissipate heat.
And they need to have it,otherwise they can't release any
body heat.
(21:03):
And so if you put the Vaselinethere, sometimes, if the birds
might have moisture, and then soyou've got water trapped
underneath there and dependingon what temperature, they will
freeze too.
So actually it might even makeyour frostbite worse, but when
we talk about frostbite.
(21:24):
The best thing to do is toprovide a coup during the winter
time for your birds to come inand, um, that tube has to have
good ventilation because wedon't want high ammonia levels,
otherwise we've got respiratoryproblems.
But birds can survive very coldtemperatures if they're
(21:47):
protected.
From the wind and rain or snow,which is water.
And so that's the thing thatcauses things to freeze.
So you keep them in there, youinsulate the house well, just
for the winter time.
But actually most people, if youkeep your birds free range
outside, you wanna keep yourbirds indoor because of
(22:07):
predators.
Unless you have, vegetation orbushes around that they can
hide.
But you know, nobody wants youknow, your predators, foxes,
yotes bears that come around andeat.
The chickens while they'resleeping.
You even have great horn owls.
(22:28):
So most times you would, people,if you keep your birds outside,
free range, whatever, you'dwanna keep'em indoors.
Exhibition birds, maybe outsidein cages.
You wanna find some kind ofprotective area during the
winter.
The other thing people say isthat if you've got very cold
winter, you might wanna get coldheart birds.
(22:49):
Those that are used to the coldrather than Mediterranean
breeds, like a leghorn would notdo well in the cold.
They are single comb, large combbirds, and so they can get
frostbite.
They're raised in the coldtemperature, but the best way to
prevent frostbite is to provideshelter that no exposure to the
(23:09):
wind and some water source.
Jennifer (23:14):
Okay, let's assume they do get frostbite.
What could we do for them?
Dr. Morishita (23:20):
So the first thing, like if, the temperature
went down.
the next morning you should lookat the combs.
Of the birds and you know, likethe early initial stages of
frostbite, the might look paleand waxy.
the later stages when there isbad frostbite, there is necrosis
of the tips.
(23:40):
So those are just dead tissue.
That thing is gonna fall off.
Just like people that havefrostbite on their toes, it's
gonna.
Falling off.
So there's not really anything
Jennifer (23:52):
you can do at that
Dr. Morishita (23:53):
point.
So if you've got it blackalready, if they're kind of
white and waxy, you wanna warmthem up because just like people
that get frostbite, you can't,like somebody is very cold and
the toes are blue or somethinglike that.
You can't heat them right awayand put direct heat.
That even causes worse.
If you've learned in first aidfor frostbite.
(24:15):
So the best thing is to warmthem up gradually.
No direct heat on the tissue.
But that's in the early stages.
Once you see that black thingthat's like frostbite, just, um,
Carey (24:28):
just
Dr. Morishita (24:29):
there, white people, you'd lose your toes.
Jennifer (24:31):
I had a coach in a couple years ago and he got
frostbite.
He wasn't named yet because Iwasn't for sure I was gonna keep
him, but he got frostbite and helost all the tips on his.
Comb and he looked like he had aeighties mohawk afterwards.
It was just really smooth.
So I named him Frosty.
and he went on to be a goodbreeder for somebody because it
(24:55):
wasn't genetic and he's
Dr. Morishita (24:58):
a cosmetic issue.
Jennifer (25:00):
Exactly.
he just couldn't be shown atthat point.
Dr. Morishita (25:03):
But you know.
Like when we see darkened tipson the stuff, we always have to
think is this frostbite rule outpetmate fighting?
But the other thing is likeErgotism mycotoxin the fungus or
that causes ergot disease.
And that would be the only otherthing that would cause the
(25:24):
necrosis of the tip.
But hopefully people are keepingtheir um.
Chicken feed, um, properlystored.
But that's another thing, Ergon.
Jennifer (25:36):
All right.
The last physical trait we'regonna talk about is trimming the
nails in the beaks.
Dr. Morishita (25:43):
Oh, trimming the nails and the beak.
So if you are having all,usually this is a problem with
birds kept and cage.
That they don't have anything towear down their nails.
So what you would do is, um,similar to your spur, those are
(26:06):
like toenails too.
And so you would just cut whereyou don't see the quick.
Of the nail.
Jennifer (26:14):
Yeah, that's pretty easy.
I do that when I'm taking'em toa show.
But the beaks, everybody alwayshas questions about the beaks
and trimming a beak is verydifferent than what the
commercial layer houses do,which is called deaking.
Dr. Morishita (26:31):
So there's deaking where they actually cut.
The beak when the birds are aday of age, but that, is very,
the birds sometimes have a hardtime to eat.
Other people would say it'scruelty.
But that thing has been used totry to prevent cannibalism.
(26:55):
But that is like a actual cut toright in front of the Aries.
And probably best done again atthe younger age rather than
older.
But you need to leave at leastmore than nickels with, um, from
the ex.
Extraordinary.
But that is commercial.
(27:18):
Yes.
Now, if you talk about trimmingthis, usually you might see
problems in parrots, orchickens.
Sometimes it is a genetic defectand the birds are born with
scissors, beak, you know, wherethey're not aligned.
Because normally the upper beakand lower beak, the tip of the
(27:40):
beak should, um, match.
If they don't match, that couldprobably be a genetic defect in
that breed.
So you might have to make, do Iwant to keep.
That as a breed or not, you cankeep it as a bird, but just know
that these type of birds need toeat more mash feed.
And you should have a lotbecause if there's very few food
(28:03):
in your feed tray they're gonnahave a hard time to eat with
that malformation of the beakstructure.
But if you had a lot of mashfood, a lot of food, those birds
can survive.
By eating, because the mainthing is that they need to eat
food and periodically you lookat them to make sure that
there's no food buildup that cancause you know, food building up
(28:28):
in the area that would
Carey (28:31):
like an impacted crop or something along those lines.
Right?
Dr. Morishita (28:33):
might rot and it might smell, so you pick up
your, those birds often.
So I said that could be agenetic defect, but it also
could be from injury, somethinghitting, getting stuck in a wire
gauge cage or something, andcausing trauma.
And then the beak will be off.
So for that life of the bird,you need to trim that.
(28:57):
if the beak is so now aligned,it won't get back to normal.
And so the beaks don't.
Match so they can't wear itdown.
So that's where you might haveto file it down before they get
very severe and they can't eat.
(29:17):
As it grows and curves, that's alittle harder because it's
harder to see where you're notgonna hit blood vessels.
Jennifer (29:28):
Yeah.
I use, um, like a metal file.
And you just go slow and justkeep trimming.
Just a little bit of hair dustoff at a time until it gets
where you need it to be.
Dr. Morishita (29:42):
Oh, you can do, mm-hmm.
Okay.
Jennifer (29:46):
I have
Dr. Morishita (29:48):
aclusion.
Jennifer (29:50):
I have another question that wasn't on your
list, so we're gonna go off thetop of your head for this one.
You ready?
Uh oh.
I saw it in a group on Facebook,and I just, I looked it up, and
I don't think it's true, but Iwanna get your opinion.
Somebody said that if the waddlewas missing on a male chicken,
(30:11):
it would be sterile, true orfalse.
Dr. Morishita (30:16):
I would think that is false.
Jennifer (30:20):
I would say there's no correlation.
Right?
Dr. Morishita (30:24):
Well, because you remember, we could cut the water
off.
So by that token,
Jennifer (30:29):
it would be false.
What if it was hatched that way,would it still not make a
difference?
Dr. Morishita (30:36):
I don't think so.
I don't know of any researchthat would correlate the testes
with the appendage.
Yeah.
Or testosterone would make itbigger or red, or blood vessels
in there.
But nothing like it disappears.
It wouldn't.
I told him I didn't,
Jennifer (30:53):
still have your called.
I told him.
I called, I said it was a myth.
I didn't believe it at all
Carey (31:00):
because like there's a lot of people that raise game
file that dubbed their birds,and there's no way they would do
that if their birds were sterileafter they dubbed them.
Dr. Morishita (31:11):
And then if you, if they were let's say that they
didn't have that because theydidn't have.
Testosterone.
Well, they wouldn't be fightingbirds, wouldn't they?
Because they'd be all like,
Carey (31:22):
that's true too.
Jennifer (31:23):
They'll be couch potatoes.
Carey (31:26):
Yeah, they'd become a couch potato.
Jennifer (31:29):
Oh, here's another one.
Bringing that up one more andthen we'll call it a day.
Um, what do you think about capcoupons?
Do you think people should dothat, or is that reserved for
vet to do?
Dr. Morishita (31:41):
No, I outta curiosity of those old male
catalogs, I remember buying aizing kit and so basically it
was a bunch of ropes and scalpelblade, you know, like a really
primitive, that was the olderdays.
Mm-hmm.
I would not do that because thetestes are located in the body
(32:04):
of a bird.
Just opening and causing an openwound and, and taking that out
is not a good thing.
You probably could lose yourbird and these kind of surgeries
should be done, you know, in aveterinary office if you need to
do it.
(32:24):
It's just like somebody gotsomebody and they opened them up
and they took out their kidneys.
Carey (32:30):
Yeah you would want that done in at least a remotely
clean environment, and then thatbird would need to stay in at
least a remotely cleanenvironment until it heals up,
or you're just asking forinfection and a long laundry
list of other stuff.
I don't think the risk would beworth it.
(32:51):
No, just hatch more so you canget some hands.
Dr. Morishita (32:54):
When you think about it, what is the big reason
that you would wanna keep Anizeyour rooster?
Are you raising them for meat?
Jennifer (33:03):
Yeah, meat,
Carey (33:05):
yeah.
The roosters are bigger, but Ican say that.
If you separate'em out, as soonas you can tell who's who and
put all the roosters togetherwith no hen they don't fight.
Mm-hmm.
Now, I mean if it's genetic forsome to be aggressive, then
(33:25):
yeah.
But like a Rhode Island red, oryou know, a barred rock or in
Orpington they're not gonna doit.
Dr. Morishita (33:35):
No, because there's nobody to be competitive
against.
For what?
Nothing.
They're all loose up.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer (33:44):
Well, Dr.
M has been a pleasure.
You can go back into your secretservice in my six status now,
okay?
Carey (33:54):
I do appreciate you coming on and talking to us
about these.
I learned some stuff myself.
I did not realize that about theCrested Birds.
Jennifer (34:03):
So,
Carey (34:04):
yeah, I didn't realize that about turkeys either.
I didn't know they cut that off.
I just thought it was like abread end mutation or something.
Like everything else.
Jennifer (34:11):
Do they put it on a key chain?
Like they do rabbit feet?
Carey (34:15):
No.
Jennifer (34:16):
Oh, we're just being, you might
Carey (34:18):
find it on eBay.
You can get just abouteverything else there.
Jennifer (34:21):
Exactly.
I, you can freeze dry it.
Why?
Is it a delicacy or something?
No, I mean, if you wannapreserve as a key chain.
Oh, gotcha.
Dr. Morishita (34:34):
I'm good, But thank you for thought.
Yeah.
Like for commercial birds, not,because most people like to see
that snoog.
Jennifer (34:43):
Yes.
All right.
Well we appreciate you.
Thank you.
Dr. Morishita (34:48):
Okay.
Thank you.
Welcome poultry nerds.
We are back with our favoriteveterinarian, Dr.
M.
Carey (00:08):
I mean outta respect I've had my name misspelled a lot,
and if I type hers really fast.
Don't pay attention.
Autocorrect will misspell it forme.
Dr. Morishita (00:20):
How did they spell it?
Carey (00:22):
There's two or three different ways.
One of them involves a fourletter word being put at the end
instead of where it should be,and it's okay.
I just have to be careful withit.
So when I type it out, I just doDoctor M'cause
Jennifer (00:38):
I don't wanna mess up.
And then automatically wants toput an H in Theresa too.
Carey (00:43):
Yeah.
Jennifer (00:45):
So Dr.
M, are you okay with Dr.
M?
Sure.
It sounds like you're, MI six ona James Bond movie.
Okay.
So we are gonna talk about somephysical traits today that we
see in all kinds of species, Iguess, right?
Dr. Morishita (01:06):
Yeah.
Every species has little.
Issues.
Jennifer (01:10):
Yep.
So the first thing we're gonnatalk about is vaulted skulls.
So nothing I have has a vaultedskull.
Carey (01:19):
Yeah.
I don't have any crested birdsUhuh.
Jennifer (01:22):
So tell us about'em, will you?
Dr. Morishita (01:26):
Well, you know, the vaulted skulls are most
prominent in silkies.
Carey (01:32):
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Morishita (01:32):
But they also have an encrusted birds, so like
polish as well.
Jennifer (01:38):
There's a crested duck too, isn't there?
Dr. Morishita (01:40):
So what is Ed skulls?
Yes.
So that means they have a veryweakened area on the top of
their skull where their crestis.
And, um, this is like a geneticmutation.
It's an abnormality that was.
Spread into these type of birds.
(02:01):
Um, so what happens is that it'salmost like the brain protruding
out, but it is covered with athin skeleton.
but it's very thinner.
And you know, just in general,as we work with our birds, we
know that birds were built asflying machines.
So their bones are reallyfragile and thin.
(02:24):
They support the structures, butthey are thin.
If you compare the skeleton of abird to that of a mammal, a dog,
cat, or cow, we know theirskeletons are heavier because
birds by evolutionary was madeto be flying machines.
So everything is compact,reduced, and thin wall.
(02:48):
That makes sense.
So the best that I can do toexplain that is that if we feel
our own head, so let's feel thetop of our heads and the side,
you can feel that your skull isvery thick, right?
Mm-hmm.
My wife says
Carey (03:05):
that mine's really thick sometimes,
Dr. Morishita (03:07):
it's good to have thick because it's protecting
your brain.
But, so if we think of on ourskull, everything feels hard
except if we go to the temple.
So the temple, if you take youreyes and move it towards the
side, towards your ear, just alittle north of that area is the
temple.
(03:28):
So if you feel your temple, youcan feel that it's a little
softer there, right?
And so you often hear that ifyou have children and babies,
you have to watch out andprotect the temple because
that's the weakest spot of theskull.
So think about this, for ourbird skull.
Now the bird skulls are verymuch thinner.
So if I were to take a birdskull and if I'm trying to find
(03:51):
out why they die, I can use aregular, like a surgical
scissors.
Just insert it and I can cutaround over the whole brain and
remove it.
If I were to do a mammal, youneed a bold, no scissors.
cut the brain so you can alreadysee the different thickness.
So for the birds, what we haveis temple, which is our weak
(04:14):
spot.
And so if people, hurt orpuncture something in the
temple, sometimes you can have afatal injury Crested births like
Silky or Polish, when they'reborn as chicks, if you see them
as chicks, they have like alittle protrusion on the top.
It's covered by a skull, butthat skull area is very thin, so
if they fall or they get somekind of trauma there, it can
(04:38):
often be fatal as well Okay.
That's just a uniquecharacteristic of the breed.
You know those would crestedfeathers.
Jennifer (04:48):
Can you, what would be the downside to it?
Can it be like Too vaulted?
Like what's the downside tobeing
Dr. Morishita (04:57):
vaulted injury to the brain?
Because that area covering thatlittle skeletal area, covering
it is very thin wall, and so ifsomething hits their head, they
can have brain injury, which canoften,
Jennifer (05:13):
that explains a lot with the silkies.
What have you experienced?
I don't have silkies.
Carey (05:22):
Yeah, I don't have silkies either.
But you know, I've oftenwondered sometimes if.
People were like, they're theanimals.
They keep,
Dr. Morishita (05:32):
oh, well, you know, silkies are very unique
too.
'cause they got black flesh andtheir feathers are like, without
structure.
Carey (05:42):
So for me, like the Silkies and the Creeger, which
is another one that's like that,I think they're fascinating
because when I look at'em,especially the Creeger.
Because they're black.
It reminds me of eighties rockand the hairbands.
Jennifer (06:05):
I think you're talking about Polish.
Carey (06:08):
I mean, they all have the hair.
Oh.
It's like, it's like everywhere,you know, on their head.
And you know, back in theeighties when they had the
hairbands is what I called'em.
Yeah.
You know, they had the hair,like they would tease their hair
out.
Wayne's world,
Dr. Morishita (06:24):
well, some of'em are very beautiful, but you
know, in order to breathe likethat, this is a genetic defect
that was bred in, interesting.
Carey (06:33):
So do you have to take special precautions to keep
stuff from hurting their head
Dr. Morishita (06:40):
Well, it's especially like this chick.
it is, you have to do it becauseit's a thin area, so.
If they fight among orsomething, you know, whatever
they bang their head, they'reare prone to neurologic
problems.
So that's why they, they oftensay Silkies have neurological
issues, you know?
Mm.
Because of the damage.
(07:01):
But it's no more different thanif you had, you know, those
little wine marons, those littlesausage dog or Bassett hounds,
you know, where they're longer,where they got short little
legs.
Mm-hmm.
When you got the long back likethat, those.
Dogs are prone to like spinaldamage,
Carey (07:19):
yeah.
Dr. Morishita (07:21):
So it's all, and that's a mutation too, you know,
little pugs or Frenchy bulldogsor have those cat their nose
pressed into their face and theyhave breathing problems.
So these are all part of thegenetic mutation.
People like the looks of them,but they do have medical issues,
Jennifer (07:39):
oh, right.
That makes more sense now.
Okay.
the next physical trait we wannatalk about is removing the
Spurs.
That seems to be prettycontroversial, so can you do it
safely?
Dr. Morishita (07:53):
The, you would need to trim it.
You can never remove the sparespur entirely because if you
look at one of my handouts,which you guys post it.
It's called Medical Managementof the Rooster of the Spur.
Carey (08:08):
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Morishita (08:09):
It's in those handouts and so in that.
You will see an x-ray of anactual foot that I taxidermy.
And then another one is theactual foot itself.
So when you look at it, the spurthink of it as a material
similar to the beak.
Our fingernails horn.
(08:31):
It's, it's keratin, mystructure.
And so technically like afingernail, like take your
finger, put it up to the sun.
You can, you can't see throughwhere your flesh is, but you can
see like white clear errorswhere you can see your
fingernails, right?
Mm-hmm.
So you will need to just cutthat fingernail area.
(08:55):
And if your fingernails are cutvery close to your meat, you
won't see any of like maybewhite, white, translucent areas
when you put your hand up to thesun.
Just think about it.
You wouldn't want a dogguillotine cutter to cut it.
You don't wanna cut it becauseyou don't know where your flesh
is and then it's gonna bleed.
So just like, our trim, our dogtoenails and cat toenails, um,
(09:21):
you have to want chow whereyou're clipping so that you
don't clip the quick K-W-I-C-K,which is where the blood vessels
shoot out.
So some people, if they want to,they can't cut the spur out
entirely because if you look atthat photograph, there's a bone
in there.
(09:42):
So if you do a guillotine cut,you're actually cutting bone.
You'll be having an open, like afracture, and so mm-hmm.
Bacteria can go in there becauseyou know it's on the foot.
So they're gonna be near theground, their poop or whatever.
Bacteria can get in there andyou can have some infection of
the bulb.
Which is bad for the bird.
Carey (10:05):
Yeah, that'll be really bad.
Dr. Morishita (10:06):
Yeah.
So the best way to do is yougotta hold your bird up.
You can take it to a dark roomor shine, a bright light, like
you do for, um, ling and seewhere you have the, um, where
you can see that it's just thenail.
Then maybe put a little sharpiepen, permanent marker there.
(10:29):
So when you take your bird out,you can just get like a drill
and um, kind of sand that down.
You could use your guillotinecutters, but again there's
different type of dog nailclippers, so you'd have to get
the INE one, but you've gottamake sure that you see it, you
(10:49):
know?
Rems are always some of thebetter tools to use.
I think if people are not usedto, you might get some training
from, you know, yourveterinarian or something or do
that because you never, it'spain.
It's pain.
I think the old method, peopleused to like try to take, twist
(11:09):
it off, not a good thing.
It's like pulling out yourfingernail.
You know that sore
Carey (11:16):
ow Like the thought of that just,
Dr. Morishita (11:20):
yeah.
You see we're talking about liketorture topics today.
Carey (11:23):
Yeah.
Dr. Morishita (11:24):
Yeah.
Carey (11:24):
So I cheat the brain when I have to trim spurs, I use a
piece of five eights inch thickaluminum, got holes drilled in
it.
And it's on a piece of flat bar,so it is screwed to a piece of
wood out in the chicken yard.
And I stick the spur throughthat and I have a really, really
(11:48):
fine tooth saw, and I cut itwith that because five eights of
an inches more than past thatquick part Like I've had ingrown
toenails before and that justseems like an extreme amount of
pain.
So I err on the side of cautionwhen it comes to cutting those,
(12:12):
because that's gotta hurt.
Dr. Morishita (12:16):
When you think about it, why do they have
spurs?
They have spurs for defense.
You know, they're defendingtheir hen flock or something,
right?
So in order actually, like, theyalways say like, do you really
want aggressive roosters?
You know, I mean, the reallyaggressive ones that, you know,
you might have to take the topof a trash can and or carry a
(12:41):
broom when you're out there.
But, one of the ways that youcan manage from having
aggressive rooster is.
You might probably don't wantjust one rooster.
If you can have more birds, thenyou probably wanna have two
roosters, because then theyfight among themselves and they
don't fight with you fordominance, but then you have to
think about if you haveroosters, if you have little
(13:01):
kids around your children oryour grandchildren, you don't
wanna have very aggressiveroosters moving, and it's not
their fault.
They're not aggressive, they'rejust being protective of their
HeLOCK.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's a natural thing.
It's a visual thing that, youknow, it maybe the females are
more attractive to, um, not onlyby the combs and wattles, but
(13:26):
also maybe the size of theirspurs too, but so always think
about, are there other ways Ican use, or do I want to breed
aggressive birds, into theflock.
So always know what other thingsyou can do to manage that,
because, I'm sure nobody wantslike a fingernail pulled out.
Ugh.
(13:47):
Quit saying that.
We trim it, you know, just the,
Carey (13:50):
all of that just sends chills on my spine,
Dr. Morishita (13:54):
file it down, you know.
But really in the action of adefense, and I've only read.
Someone like in Southeast Asia,I believe it was Thailand,
there's a report of somebodybeing killed by the spurs of a
peacock and they were feedingthem and they were like in a
confined area.
So if you do have veryaggressive, sometimes maybe you
(14:19):
need to wear hats or don'tcorner them to make them feel
defensive.
You know, because even if youtrim your spur or if it's a
sharp spur, that blood thing canalso go into your temple too,
Carey (14:37):
yeah.
It's just
Dr. Morishita (14:37):
instead of being a pokey thing, puncturing you,
it'll be a dull puncture, youknow?
So if you need to haveaggressive rooster, you might
wear.
Protective covering around youror something,
Carey (14:51):
Keep your head on a swivel when you're out there
taking care of them.
Dr. Morishita (14:54):
Yeah.
You gotta watch.
Jennifer (14:56):
Alright, well let's move to the other end and talk
about Combs.
Combs, well, Combs and waddles.
So can you tell us about thepurpose of the combs and
Waddles?
Dr. Morishita (15:08):
Well, the combs and Waddles are like you know, I
would say they would have twofunctions.
One would be that they arevascularized, which means they
have a lot of blood vesselsthere.
And so oftentimes you can seelike the different colors of the
combs.
Some are pale, some when they'recold or whatever, but usually
when they're active it's brightred'cause there's a lot of blood
(15:32):
vessels there.
And so like combs and models.
They help to dissipate the heatbecause as you know, birds
cannot sweat and so they helpdissipate the heat for the bird.
They're also for attracting thepens, you know, the more
(15:52):
dominant roosters have probablylarger combs, brighter red, and
that would be attracted to thehead.
Except in the case, if you onlyhave one rooster, it really
doesn't matter, I guess.
Right?
Jennifer (16:06):
Yeah.
Carey (16:07):
They don't have a lot of choices then
Jennifer (16:11):
what about dubbing them, cutting off the cones and
waddles?
Dr. Morishita (16:16):
So the question is, why would we want to cut off
the combs and waddles andprobably fighting among.
Head makes or damage to thehome.
Mm-hmm.
The other thing is that if youare involved in gamecock
fighting, you probably wanna dubthat because that are areas of
(16:40):
the birds, this is a illegalactivity, but you might do that
so that when they're fighting, Iguess they don't attack that
part or get a hold of the birdand then, jab'em with the spurs.
Mm-hmm.
So you would see dubbing in thatprobably for those, or for those
(17:01):
people raising old word gangbirds.
Maybe they, some people preferit dubbed or
Carey (17:06):
not.
Dr. Morishita (17:07):
Other people might dub because they're
worried about frostbite.
But if you're gonna be dubbedthat thing in an adult bird.
Is full of blood vessels.
That ain't gonna be a prettysite cutting that off, maybe
cutting.
It'd be like similar to cuttingyour ear lobe.
Jennifer (17:27):
Okay.
So what age do you dub them?
Dr. Morishita (17:30):
I would say that you would dub them early on when
they're very young and it's not.
You just use a, like a dubbingscissors or regular surgical
scissors and cut it aseptic,which is clean.
And then you would cut it off.
(17:52):
Um, people don't know theprocedure.
You can always talk to yourveterinarian, but you know, we
try to do, if only if you reallyneed it,
Jennifer (18:01):
I would imagine that hurts.
Dr. Morishita (18:04):
Yes.
Like maybe cutting off your earwall.
Jennifer (18:07):
Yes.
I don't know, I don't have thesekinds of animals, so I just, I
know these questions are outthere because it gets done, but
they don't have firsthandknowledge with it.
Carey (18:18):
Well, I know like people that show game foul, part of
their standard.
Requires that adult birds betrimmed, which I always thought
was weird, but yeah,
Dr. Morishita (18:35):
you probably wanna do it in a day of age.
When they're small, there's someblood vessels of course, but not
a lot.
And a bigger wound, you know, Iknow turkeys, some are deputed.
especially in commercialproduction, they have a little
sno just above their externalbetween their eyes in that
(18:57):
little fleshy tag.
usually they remove it incommercial production day of
age.
then they won't have that large,dangling because if your
property has.
This bacteria called syphilis.
it can cause that sno to getinflamed and swollen like a
sausage male turkeys are alwaysfighting each other and see that
(19:23):
dangling like a worm.
So they're attracted of like,pecking at it.
that's how the bacteria gets inthere.
makes swollen.
And unfortunately the birds diebecause bacteria goes septic
throughout the body.
Jennifer (19:38):
Well, I have a lot of turkeys and I just learned
something completely new.
I had no idea people cut theirSNS off
Dr. Morishita (19:46):
for the commercial ones.
Where you have a lot of turkeysin a building
Carey (19:51):
like the broad breasted.
Type that are bred forcommercial production, like
they'll cut those off,
Dr. Morishita (20:00):
Because, you know, they have a lot of turkeys
in a confined area and as theygrow and mature into the Tom
Turkeys, you're gonna see thatlike little worm moving around
and they'll start pecking attheir pen mates, peck at each
other.
You might not see that inbackyard flocks because most
people would want to.
See the smooth and they probablymore access to space.
(20:26):
Or they don't have that manymales together.
As you know, in any birdspecies.
The males are more aggressive toeach other.
Jennifer (20:34):
Okay, so in the winter time, does Vaseline really help
prevent frostbite on the wattlesin the C?
Dr. Morishita (20:42):
Well, initially you might think because, oh oil,
we keep the coal away, but itreally doesn't because if we
remember earlier on that birdsdo not sweat and remember I was
telling you about the comb.
That's how they dissipate heat.
And they need to have it,otherwise they can't release any
body heat.
(21:03):
And so if you put the Vaselinethere, sometimes, if the birds
might have moisture, and then soyou've got water trapped
underneath there and dependingon what temperature, they will
freeze too.
So actually it might even makeyour frostbite worse, but when
we talk about frostbite.
(21:24):
The best thing to do is toprovide a coup during the winter
time for your birds to come inand, um, that tube has to have
good ventilation because wedon't want high ammonia levels,
otherwise we've got respiratoryproblems.
But birds can survive very coldtemperatures if they're
(21:47):
protected.
From the wind and rain or snow,which is water.
And so that's the thing thatcauses things to freeze.
So you keep them in there, youinsulate the house well, just
for the winter time.
But actually most people, if youkeep your birds free range
outside, you wanna keep yourbirds indoor because of
(22:07):
predators.
Unless you have, vegetation orbushes around that they can
hide.
But you know, nobody wants youknow, your predators, foxes,
yotes bears that come around andeat.
The chickens while they'resleeping.
You even have great horn owls.
(22:28):
So most times you would, people,if you keep your birds outside,
free range, whatever, you'dwanna keep'em indoors.
Exhibition birds, maybe outsidein cages.
You wanna find some kind ofprotective area during the
winter.
The other thing people say isthat if you've got very cold
winter, you might wanna get coldheart birds.
(22:49):
Those that are used to the coldrather than Mediterranean
breeds, like a leghorn would notdo well in the cold.
They are single comb, large combbirds, and so they can get
frostbite.
They're raised in the coldtemperature, but the best way to
prevent frostbite is to provideshelter that no exposure to the
(23:09):
wind and some water source.
Jennifer (23:14):
Okay, let's assume they do get frostbite.
What could we do for them?
Dr. Morishita (23:20):
So the first thing, like if, the temperature
went down.
the next morning you should lookat the combs.
Of the birds and you know, likethe early initial stages of
frostbite, the might look paleand waxy.
the later stages when there isbad frostbite, there is necrosis
of the tips.
(23:40):
So those are just dead tissue.
That thing is gonna fall off.
Just like people that havefrostbite on their toes, it's
gonna.
Falling off.
So there's not really anything
Jennifer (23:52):
you can do at that
Dr. Morishita (23:53):
point.
So if you've got it blackalready, if they're kind of
white and waxy, you wanna warmthem up because just like people
that get frostbite, you can't,like somebody is very cold and
the toes are blue or somethinglike that.
You can't heat them right awayand put direct heat.
That even causes worse.
If you've learned in first aidfor frostbite.
(24:15):
So the best thing is to warmthem up gradually.
No direct heat on the tissue.
But that's in the early stages.
Once you see that black thingthat's like frostbite, just, um,
Carey (24:28):
just
Dr. Morishita (24:29):
there, white people, you'd lose your toes.
Jennifer (24:31):
I had a coach in a couple years ago and he got
frostbite.
He wasn't named yet because Iwasn't for sure I was gonna keep
him, but he got frostbite and helost all the tips on his.
Comb and he looked like he had aeighties mohawk afterwards.
It was just really smooth.
So I named him Frosty.
and he went on to be a goodbreeder for somebody because it
(24:55):
wasn't genetic and he's
Dr. Morishita (24:58):
a cosmetic issue.
Jennifer (25:00):
Exactly.
he just couldn't be shown atthat point.
Dr. Morishita (25:03):
But you know.
Like when we see darkened tipson the stuff, we always have to
think is this frostbite rule outpetmate fighting?
But the other thing is likeErgotism mycotoxin the fungus or
that causes ergot disease.
And that would be the only otherthing that would cause the
(25:24):
necrosis of the tip.
But hopefully people are keepingtheir um.
Chicken feed, um, properlystored.
But that's another thing, Ergon.
Jennifer (25:36):
All right.
The last physical trait we'regonna talk about is trimming the
nails in the beaks.
Dr. Morishita (25:43):
Oh, trimming the nails and the beak.
So if you are having all,usually this is a problem with
birds kept and cage.
That they don't have anything towear down their nails.
So what you would do is, um,similar to your spur, those are
(26:06):
like toenails too.
And so you would just cut whereyou don't see the quick.
Of the nail.
Jennifer (26:14):
Yeah, that's pretty easy.
I do that when I'm taking'em toa show.
But the beaks, everybody alwayshas questions about the beaks
and trimming a beak is verydifferent than what the
commercial layer houses do,which is called deaking.
Dr. Morishita (26:31):
So there's deaking where they actually cut.
The beak when the birds are aday of age, but that, is very,
the birds sometimes have a hardtime to eat.
Other people would say it'scruelty.
But that thing has been used totry to prevent cannibalism.
(26:55):
But that is like a actual cut toright in front of the Aries.
And probably best done again atthe younger age rather than
older.
But you need to leave at leastmore than nickels with, um, from
the ex.
Extraordinary.
But that is commercial.
(27:18):
Yes.
Now, if you talk about trimmingthis, usually you might see
problems in parrots, orchickens.
Sometimes it is a genetic defectand the birds are born with
scissors, beak, you know, wherethey're not aligned.
Because normally the upper beakand lower beak, the tip of the
(27:40):
beak should, um, match.
If they don't match, that couldprobably be a genetic defect in
that breed.
So you might have to make, do Iwant to keep.
That as a breed or not, you cankeep it as a bird, but just know
that these type of birds need toeat more mash feed.
And you should have a lotbecause if there's very few food
(28:03):
in your feed tray they're gonnahave a hard time to eat with
that malformation of the beakstructure.
But if you had a lot of mashfood, a lot of food, those birds
can survive.
By eating, because the mainthing is that they need to eat
food and periodically you lookat them to make sure that
there's no food buildup that cancause you know, food building up
(28:28):
in the area that would
Carey (28:31):
like an impacted crop or something along those lines.
Right?
Dr. Morishita (28:33):
might rot and it might smell, so you pick up
your, those birds often.
So I said that could be agenetic defect, but it also
could be from injury, somethinghitting, getting stuck in a wire
gauge cage or something, andcausing trauma.
And then the beak will be off.
So for that life of the bird,you need to trim that.
(28:57):
if the beak is so now aligned,it won't get back to normal.
And so the beaks don't.
Match so they can't wear itdown.
So that's where you might haveto file it down before they get
very severe and they can't eat.
(29:17):
As it grows and curves, that's alittle harder because it's
harder to see where you're notgonna hit blood vessels.
Jennifer (29:28):
Yeah.
I use, um, like a metal file.
And you just go slow and justkeep trimming.
Just a little bit of hair dustoff at a time until it gets
where you need it to be.
Dr. Morishita (29:42):
Oh, you can do, mm-hmm.
Okay.
Jennifer (29:46):
I have
Dr. Morishita (29:48):
aclusion.
Jennifer (29:50):
I have another question that wasn't on your
list, so we're gonna go off thetop of your head for this one.
You ready?
Uh oh.
I saw it in a group on Facebook,and I just, I looked it up, and
I don't think it's true, but Iwanna get your opinion.
Somebody said that if the waddlewas missing on a male chicken,
(30:11):
it would be sterile, true orfalse.
Dr. Morishita (30:16):
I would think that is false.
Jennifer (30:20):
I would say there's no correlation.
Right?
Dr. Morishita (30:24):
Well, because you remember, we could cut the water
off.
So by that token,
Jennifer (30:29):
it would be false.
What if it was hatched that way,would it still not make a
difference?
Dr. Morishita (30:36):
I don't think so.
I don't know of any researchthat would correlate the testes
with the appendage.
Yeah.
Or testosterone would make itbigger or red, or blood vessels
in there.
But nothing like it disappears.
It wouldn't.
I told him I didn't,
Jennifer (30:53):
still have your called.
I told him.
I called, I said it was a myth.
I didn't believe it at all
Carey (31:00):
because like there's a lot of people that raise game
file that dubbed their birds,and there's no way they would do
that if their birds were sterileafter they dubbed them.
Dr. Morishita (31:11):
And then if you, if they were let's say that they
didn't have that because theydidn't have.
Testosterone.
Well, they wouldn't be fightingbirds, wouldn't they?
Because they'd be all like,
Carey (31:22):
that's true too.
Jennifer (31:23):
They'll be couch potatoes.
Carey (31:26):
Yeah, they'd become a couch potato.
Jennifer (31:29):
Oh, here's another one.
Bringing that up one more andthen we'll call it a day.
Um, what do you think about capcoupons?
Do you think people should dothat, or is that reserved for
vet to do?
Dr. Morishita (31:41):
No, I outta curiosity of those old male
catalogs, I remember buying aizing kit and so basically it
was a bunch of ropes and scalpelblade, you know, like a really
primitive, that was the olderdays.
Mm-hmm.
I would not do that because thetestes are located in the body
(32:04):
of a bird.
Just opening and causing an openwound and, and taking that out
is not a good thing.
You probably could lose yourbird and these kind of surgeries
should be done, you know, in aveterinary office if you need to
do it.
(32:24):
It's just like somebody gotsomebody and they opened them up
and they took out their kidneys.
Carey (32:30):
Yeah you would want that done in at least a remotely
clean environment, and then thatbird would need to stay in at
least a remotely cleanenvironment until it heals up,
or you're just asking forinfection and a long laundry
list of other stuff.
I don't think the risk would beworth it.
(32:51):
No, just hatch more so you canget some hands.
Dr. Morishita (32:54):
When you think about it, what is the big reason
that you would wanna keep Anizeyour rooster?
Are you raising them for meat?
Jennifer (33:03):
Yeah, meat,
Carey (33:05):
yeah.
The roosters are bigger, but Ican say that.
If you separate'em out, as soonas you can tell who's who and
put all the roosters togetherwith no hen they don't fight.
Mm-hmm.
Now, I mean if it's genetic forsome to be aggressive, then
(33:25):
yeah.
But like a Rhode Island red, oryou know, a barred rock or in
Orpington they're not gonna doit.
Dr. Morishita (33:35):
No, because there's nobody to be competitive
against.
For what?
Nothing.
They're all loose up.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer (33:44):
Well, Dr.
M has been a pleasure.
You can go back into your secretservice in my six status now,
okay?
Carey (33:54):
I do appreciate you coming on and talking to us
about these.
I learned some stuff myself.
I did not realize that about theCrested Birds.
Jennifer (34:03):
So,
Carey (34:04):
yeah, I didn't realize that about turkeys either.
I didn't know they cut that off.
I just thought it was like abread end mutation or something.
Like everything else.
Jennifer (34:11):
Do they put it on a key chain?
Like they do rabbit feet?
Carey (34:15):
No.
Jennifer (34:16):
Oh, we're just being, you might
Carey (34:18):
find it on eBay.
You can get just abouteverything else there.
Jennifer (34:21):
Exactly.
I, you can freeze dry it.
Why?
Is it a delicacy or something?
No, I mean, if you wannapreserve as a key chain.
Oh, gotcha.
Dr. Morishita (34:34):
I'm good, But thank you for thought.
Yeah.
Like for commercial birds, not,because most people like to see
that snoog.
Jennifer (34:43):
Yes.
All right.
Well we appreciate you.
Thank you.
Dr. Morishita (34:48):
Okay.
Thank you.
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