Bumblefoot - can I ignore it?

Henrik Petersson · Dec 3, 2016

Some of our muscovy ducks have bumblefoot. All remedies I've read for that requires capturing the ducks at least twice a day, for many days. Now, our ducks hate being touched, and if we manage to catch one of them once, it'll be a lot more hard to catch it later the same day... Not to mention catching it the next day... Not to mentioning doing the same to two of them.

My point is, any treatment that requires repeated and frequent catching are simply not worth it. It's too stressful for the ducks, too time-consuming, and frankly, I'm afraid that all the wild attempts at escape by the ducks will harm them. All that twisting, flapping and kicking, and possible dropping on the ground, two times a day... One duck is bound to at least strain something.

So my question is if I can:

1) Simply ignore the bumblefoot, and hope that the scovies live happy lives with it?
2) Cure it with a one-time treatment? I'm sceptical towards amateur surgery, it's bound to be terribly painful and probably infected.

Or is my only ethical option to kill them?

quackers619 · Dec 3, 2016

Henrik Petersson said:
Some of our muscovy ducks have bumblefoot. All remedies I've read for that requires capturing the ducks at least twice a day, for many days. Now, our ducks hate being touched, and if we manage to catch one of them once, it'll be a lot more hard to catch it later the same day... Not to mention catching it the next day... Not to mentioning doing the same to two of them.

My point is, any treatment that requires repeated and frequent catching are simply not worth it. It's too stressful for the ducks, too time-consuming, and frankly, I'm afraid that all the wild attempts at escape by the ducks will harm them. All that twisting, flapping and kicking, and possible dropping on the ground, two times a day... One duck is bound to at least strain something.

So my question is if I can:

1) Simply ignore the bumblefoot, and hope that the scovies live happy lives with it?
2) Cure it with a one-time treatment? I'm sceptical towards amateur surgery, it's bound to be terribly painful and probably infected.

Or is my only ethical option to kill them?

It needs to be treated.........And if you feel its to much .......maybe you could re-home them......How do you know its bumble foot?

Henrik Petersson · Dec 3, 2016

quackers619 said:
It needs to be treated.........And if you feel its to much .......maybe you could re-home them......How do you know its bumble foot?

I've picked them up (picking them up once is okay) and looked under their feet. It looks just like pictures of bumble foot I've seen online.

quackers619 · Dec 3, 2016

Henrik Petersson said:
I've picked them up (picking them up once is okay) and looked under their feet. It looks just like pictures of bumble foot I've seen online.

I know it is a pain but it must be treated......... I had a duck that got it all the time and after picking her up a few times it got much easier to handle her....... do you have someone that can help you? i would just do it every night before bed time.

Orca5094 · Dec 3, 2016

It really should be properly treated and taken care of since they depend on you. Are the bumbles causing them obvious pain (are they limping, laying down alot, holding up the affected feet)? If the bumbles are not causing them clear problems and pain right now, you can at least make sure you fix whatever caused the bumbles to form in the first place. That should be your first step anyway. Bumblefoot is caused by them being on surfaces that are too hard or rough (cement or wire, for example), or also living in areas that are not properly cleaned (too much poop, which happens very quickly with ducks). If you can at least fix whatever caused the bumblefoot right now, that would be a good place to start.

Can you post pictures of your ducks' feet so we can see how severe the bumbles are? It's possible a change in the surfaces they live on might be enough to help them.

Bills vs Beaks · Dec 3, 2016

Orca5094 said:
It really should be properly treated and taken care of since they depend on you.... It's possible a change in the surfaces they live on might be enough to help them.

^^That all is good advice.

And if that fails, and you have to treat them yourself, maybe try a hood. If you put a hood on a bird, they tend to calm down. One shouldn't be hard to make
And just to say, the more you pick a duck up, the tamer it will get, just like quackers619 said. That's how my special duck got tame, coz I liked her looks so much I couldn't help picking her up over and over, so finally, she got tame

Henrik Petersson · Dec 4, 2016

quackers619 said:
I know it is a pain but it must be treated......... I had a duck that got it all the time and after picking her up a few times it got much easier to handle her....... do you have someone that can help you? i would just do it every night before bed time.

Orca5094 said:
It really should be properly treated and taken care of since they depend on you. Are the bumbles causing them obvious pain (are they limping, laying down alot, holding up the affected feet)? If the bumbles are not causing them clear problems and pain right now, you can at least make sure you fix whatever caused the bumbles to form in the first place. That should be your first step anyway. Bumblefoot is caused by them being on surfaces that are too hard or rough (cement or wire, for example), or also living in areas that are not properly cleaned (too much poop, which happens very quickly with ducks). If you can at least fix whatever caused the bumblefoot right now, that would be a good place to start.

Can you post pictures of your ducks' feet so we can see how severe the bumbles are? It's possible a change in the surfaces they live on might be enough to help them.

Bills vs Beaks said:
^^That all is good advice.

And if that fails, and you have to treat them yourself, maybe try a hood. If you put a hood on a bird, they tend to calm down. One shouldn't be hard to make
And just to say, the more you pick a duck up, the tamer it will get, just like quackers619 said. That's how my special duck got tame, coz I liked her looks so much I couldn't help picking her up over and over, so finally, she got tame

Thank you. I tried to take photos of the surfaces they frequent mostly.

We usually let them out in the morning (around 10:ish) and let them roam freely on the property - a big lawn with forest around it:

And here are a few photos from their pen. It's mostly densely packed soil, too thick for them to rummage around with their beaks in it.

We rake out their poop once a day.

I've built a hill for them that they like to stand on. There are some rough rocks on top of that hill.

I also built a pond, frozen over here. There are some bricks around the edges.

Another image of their pen. The soil turned muddy this summer when they had 23 ducklings (now slaughtered).

I tried to catch the ducks twice today, but didn't manage. Earlier today, I was gonna lure them with food, but they didn't seem hungry. And a few moments ago, I tried to catch them when they slept, but they could see me coming and panicked. So no images of their feet.

DancingWthDucks · Dec 5, 2016

Maybe get a long handled poultry catching net- this makes it a lot easier and less stressful catching them.

Good luck.

Henrik Petersson · Feb 19, 2017

Hey everyone, here's a rather late update, because we didn't get around taking care of the problem until last Saturday.

So, on the Saturday we finally caught the limping drake, and looked under his feet. He had a rather ugly case of bumblefoot on the same place on each foot.

What we did was, we called a friend of the family who is actually a human surgeon, who came and removed the scabs with a scalpel. Afterwards, we put anti-bacterial ointment on the wounds, and penned the drake up in our coop. The ducks never use the coop, so it's very clean and dry in there. He's been all alone in there all day today (Sunday) and will probably be so tomorow as well. Come Tuesday, we'll hope his feet have healed, and we'll let him out.

This is me bringing him in for treatment, with a calming sock over his head:

Amykins · Feb 21, 2017

Oh, that looks bad...No, you cannot just ignore that! Poor thing...

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