Quote:
Originally Posted by
Arielle 
SCG--what a hoot!!
How do I identify bumble foot and how do I treat it? I suspect I have a couple turkeys in need of a little help. You can PM me if desired.
The thread seems to have died down a bit so I'll answer here. Bumblefoot is easy to spot. The pad of the foot swells up (and between the toes) and there's a visible black or dark brown scab on the underside. This one's not too bad... I've seen pads super swollen with a tiny little bumble on the bottom, and I've seen bumbles that are so big they're about a quarter size...
What we do is soak the foot daily in water with epsom salts and some soap to loosen the poo. I use chlorhexidine or something with triclosan/antibacterial for the soap, usually. Then after soaking wash the foot real good. We then wrap the biddy up if they're new/freaked out:
Then cut the bumble(s) out with a sanitized (with 70% alcohol allowed to dry) razor blade and tweezers. Sometimes you can squeeze pus out, sometimes you can't. Sometimes you'll get a little bit of blood, and that's ok, too. We then use hydrogen peroxide or normal saline irrigation, depending on how bad the bumble is, in the wound, cover the pad and pack the wound with triple antibiotic ointment (without aloe or pain relief!); place a small square of gauze with the ointment on the wound, and then give the biddy a boot with Coban tape (that only sticks to itself). There's plenty of tutorials out there on how to cut the Coban and wrap the foot, but it's 3 cuts up top and one on the bottom for the toes:
The wrap the foot and put a small piece around the ankle to hold it:
You do this daily. Normally the swelling goes down really well after the first treatment, sometimes not. It's at least a 2 week process to heal them. Some people start treating at the first sign of scab, I don't. I wait for the swelling to start. I also try to only have 1 (max of 2) biddies being treated at the same time. I also try and keep them in soft bottomed cages (not wire, or at least cover the wire) in my basement until a real regular scab forms or even longer so they aren't walking around and jumping on and off roosts with their hurt foot or getting a lot of poop/dirt or even gross water if it rains into the wound - it helps them heal faster.
Once the biddy gets used to the treatment it's really easy. Soaking them requires only light supervision; and I can bandage most of my biddies without major panic from them - the one last night is a champ - you just set her on her side on the counter and apply light weight to her side and she stays there while you bandage. Other biddies make it a 2 person job.
Also be aware that the biddies make it their goal during the treatment to poop on your floor, counter, down your body... so you want to put a towel down or hold a towel under their butt. Some birds act broodyish when you put them in a cage and they don't want to soil it so they hold a nice big broody explosive horrible diarrhea like poop which they release almost the second they go into the warm water soak. I've seen those things projectile a few feet, too, especially with the bigger birds. My RIR that we did recently was queen of getting it on the counter, down the dishwasher, onto the floor and onto the cabinets on the island across from the counter she was on. I was so glad when her foot healed.
Here's a Miss Piggy for you:
