A flock with bumblefoot: Journey back to health

[fatcatx]

I didn't find any nasty white gunk under the black scabs, either. The "kernel" attached to the scab was all I encountered, and that varied in size, from a centimeter to far smaller. I tried to remove all scabby material from around the crater after lifting off the black scab, leaving a glistening crater of red, moist tissue that certainly didn't appear to contain any pus/infection that the body creates out of white blood cells to repel bacteria.

I wish it had been this simple for us. Had there been a kernel attached to the scab I would feel much better. Since it didn't have one, I am second guessing everything we are doing (or not doing)!

Love BYC - at least I do not have to muddle through it all alone and I have cute emoticons to express my chicken exasperation!

 

[seminolewind]

I've left it on for 3 days without a problem. It does dry out after a few days. I don't know what the salt % is. If it's higher than 9% I would leave it on a day or two, then wash the foot and reapply.

 

[deacons]

@fatcatx- on the question about the "kernel," I had a couple of feet where I just never did find anything like that under the scab. I am not a vet, so I don't know if this just means I didn't cut correctly to find it, or caught it early, or what. But yes, even without finding a big cheesy core, te feet still appeared to heal.

On the magnapaste, I think 3 days was my max. From what I read, people were more concerned about the menthol burning than the salts. I did reapply after cleaning and changing bandages on a few of the feet.

Are you using vetericyn as part of your process? I do feel it is a helpful wound healer (on all animals-have used it a lot on horses too)

Good luck!

 

[Cynthia12]

I wish it had been this simple for us. Had there been a kernel attached to the scab I would feel much better. Since it didn't have one, I am second guessing everything we are doing (or not doing)!

Love BYC - at least I do not have to muddle through it all alone and I have cute emoticons to express my chicken exasperation!

I have found white infection in one of my birds for the first time..and her foot wasn't even swollen that bad! Boy, when I did that first little cut..out it came..puss fell into the bucket like no other. I was so glad that I went ahead and worked on her, even though it didn't look that bad. I just knew that it would get worse..little did I know. :/ She did really well after it was cleaned out really well and taken care of for a week.

 

[sunflour]

I have found white infection in one of my birds for the first time..and her foot wasn't even swollen that bad! Boy, when I did that first little cut..out it came..puss fell into the bucket like no other. I was so glad that I went ahead and worked on her, even though it didn't look that bad. I just knew that it would get worse..little did I know. :/ She did really well after it was cleaned out really well and taken care of for a week.

Good job.

 

[deacons]

Just thought I'd share an update about the girls. I've been doing weekly foot checks, and everyone still seems good. On a few feet, you can still see the faint outline of the sore- I wonder if it will scar permanently or if new skin will eventually replace it?

Pretty Girl has been in a terrible molt for awhile now, but she is finally covered back over with soft, downy baby feathers. Now that her pin feathers finally seem to be open, today was the first time I've picked her up to check her out since the end of treatment (her molt was starting right at that time). I was a little worried about what I'd find when I looked at her feet, because I wasn't completely satisfied with how they looked after the final bandage change, but happily she was still clear and looked all healed up. Big relief!

Now Robin and Ro are in the midst of a hard molt, and Robin especially looks like a pin cushion. So, I won't be harassing them to check their feet for a month or so as they finish regrowing their feathers.

Goldie #1 was great, you'd almost never know she ever had any problems. Goldie #2 actually has a small unrelated scratch on the side of one of her feet- the ground here is frozen over now, but she still zooms around outside like a wild thing, so who knows what she did. But, I coated the scratch with a bit of neosporin and sent her to bed that way- definitely don't want any more infections setting in!

I didn't get any pictures since I was just catching them quickly as they went to the roost, but maybe next week I will try to grab some pictures when I check again. It's supposed to be a lot warmer early next week so hopefully I won't have my giant gloves on and can manage pictures and chickens!

 

[sunflour]

Just thought I'd share an update about the girls. I've been doing weekly foot checks, and everyone still seems good. On a few feet, you can still see the faint outline of the sore- I wonder if it will scar permanently or if new skin will eventually replace it?

Pretty Girl has been in a terrible molt for awhile now, but she is finally covered back over with soft, downy baby feathers. Now that her pin feathers finally seem to be open, today was the first time I've picked her up to check her out since the end of treatment (her molt was starting right at that time). I was a little worried about what I'd find when I looked at her feet, because I wasn't completely satisfied with how they looked after the final bandage change, but happily she was still clear and looked all healed up. Big relief!

Now Robin and Ro are in the midst of a hard molt, and Robin especially looks like a pin cushion. So, I won't be harassing them to check their feet for a month or so as they finish regrowing their feathers.

Goldie #1 was great, you'd almost never know she ever had any problems. Goldie #2 actually has a small unrelated scratch on the side of one of her feet- the ground here is frozen over now, but she still zooms around outside like a wild thing, so who knows what she did. But, I coated the scratch with a bit of neosporin and sent her to bed that way- definitely don't want any more infections setting in!

I didn't get any pictures since I was just catching them quickly as they went to the roost, but maybe next week I will try to grab some pictures when I check again. It's supposed to be a lot warmer early next week so hopefully I won't have my giant gloves on and can manage pictures and chickens!

Here's wishing all are clear on your next exam.

 

[chicksmom30]

It was suggested by "Sunflour" who is a member here at BYC that I please re post this in this section as there were a lot of people already following this subject of Bumblefoot so here you are:

Greetings again everyone and thanks for the nice welcomes I received plus the interest in helping a chicken with "Bumblefoot".

This is what I did and am continuing to do for about another week just to make sure it is all gone.
What I did for my girls was very time consuming however as I stated in my first posting if there was any other alternative to cutting a chickens foot open I was determined to try it .
Okay, I will try and describe this in as much detail as possible without making this into a novel lol.
I first discovered this bumblefoot about a month and a half ago when sitting outside watching my girls enjoying the sunshine and nice weather I noticed that my big red bird ( Delaware Rhodie ) was limping so I picked her up and started to examine her feet... her legs and feet were noticeably very warm to the touch and I saw the usual black scabby looking things on both feet... I had no idea at the time what this was, so I started researching and learned everything I could.

I decided after reading about all the various treatments people had tried including the "so called surgery" that I would try the product called
Tricide-neo that is sold as a medicine for fish that states that it " literally punches holes into bacteria, allowing antibiotics to enter and help destroy drug-resistant strains of bacteria". I ordered some from Amazon.com and then about a month later another pkg off the E-bay site as Amazon didn't have any. Apparently there seems to be a fairly high demand for this .

This works best with 2 people 1 to hold the bird while other person does wrapping/dressing etc

This is the link to video I watched on wrapping a chickens foot. Copy and paste this into your browser
I highly recommend you view this . The woman who did this video was great WATCH IT

Here is what I used :

Tri-cide neo ( 2 pkgs ) follow instructions do not use anything other than distilled H2o
Vet wrap ( yellow) this stuff is great it totally sticks to itself . I used Yellow because I didn't want to use a color like red which might cause the other chickens to peck at it... I wanted it to look as normal as possible to them.
Duct-tape
Small cotton pads
Penicillin ( injectable buy it at feed store) I did not inject the birds with it...just used the needle /syringe to get the Rx out of glass sealed bottle then took needle off and used the open part of syringe to put some on cotton pad while dressing chickens foot. Keep this refrigerated !
Vaseline

1. Prepare the Tricide neo I used a small cat litter pan ( clean-not ever used ) poured the liquid into it. Just enough to barely cover a chickens foot while they are standing. Do not let your chicken drink this! I just kept my hand gently on bird while timing the soak for about 7 min .
2. Have your partner sitting in a chair and then after soak they will lift bird up putting the bird on their lap while laying the bird on its side so you can dry and wrap the feet with medicine ( I used clean animal towels to dry feet )
3. Dry foot
4 Get a sm. cotton pad and cut in quarters ( 4 pieces) take 1 piece and put Vaseline on it very thickly this makes it stick to the foot while you are preparing to wrap it and also will keep the birds foot moist which is extremely important as you don't want the bumble to dry out in between treatments.
5 Lift cotton pad up just enough to get end of syringe ( NO NEEDLE) between pad and foot and put some Penicillin in there,
6. Take a piece of vet wrap ( Don't forget to watch the video ) and start to wrap chickens foot I have found myself that once you get the top part stuck the rest will come together and then I used extra strips that I had already pre-cut to fill in where more wrap was needed .
7. take one final strip and wrap around the chickens ankle area ( guess its called that )? and then I take 1 more small strip of duct tape and go over the last wrap at ankle to secure it.

As I said in the beginning " this is time consuming" I can't guarantee that this will work for your chickens but it definitely worked for mine
I have read many responses for people who used this on BYC and other poultry sites but feel that maybe they didn't do the treatment long enough and gave up after having to do this every day until it was gone.

I had to dedicate about an hour and a half every day to my birds...but again I didn't want to cut on them pain meds or not . I preferred a different approach. I love my birds they all have names and I don't want to do anything that would be harmful to them in any manner. Some people have opted to cut on their birds ...that is a personal decision but I believe that all creatures feel pain and who are we to decide how they feel it ? Just my opinion don't mean to offend anyone .

Also one more thing that was changed we already had round roosts in our coop for the birds ( no square which some experts say can cause a pressure or sore on foot eventually causing bumblefoot)
We also raised up the floor in our coop instead of lowering roosts... either way we just added a couple of wood pallots then covered with plywood then lots of straw ...as I am sure most of you already know that if a bird is too heavy or just even up too high when they jump down off roosts that can... over time cause a bumble also.
Good luck everyone.


Good luck with getting rid of bumblefoot .

 

[sunflour]

It was suggested by "Sunflour" who is a member here at BYC that I please re post this in this section as there were a lot of people already following this subject of Bumblefoot so here you are:

Greetings again everyone and thanks for the nice welcomes I received plus the interest in helping a chicken with "Bumblefoot".

This is what I did and am continuing to do for about another week just to make sure it is all gone.
What I did for my girls was very time consuming however as I stated in my first posting if there was any other alternative to cutting a chickens foot open I was determined to try it .
Okay, I will try and describe this in as much detail as possible without making this into a novel lol.
I first discovered this bumblefoot about a month and a half ago when sitting outside watching my girls enjoying the sunshine and nice weather I noticed that my big red bird ( Delaware Rhodie ) was limping so I picked her up and started to examine her feet... her legs and feet were noticeably very warm to the touch and I saw the usual black scabby looking things on both feet... I had no idea at the time what this was, so I started researching and learned everything I could.

I decided after reading about all the various treatments people had tried including the "so called surgery" that I would try the product called
Tricide-neo that is sold as a medicine for fish that states that it " literally punches holes into bacteria, allowing antibiotics to enter and help destroy drug-resistant strains of bacteria". I ordered some from Amazon.com and then about a month later another pkg off the E-bay site as Amazon didn't have any. Apparently there seems to be a fairly high demand for this .

This works best with 2 people 1 to hold the bird while other person does wrapping/dressing etc

This is the link to video I watched on wrapping a chickens foot. Copy and paste this into your browser
I highly recommend you view this . The woman who did this video was great WATCH IT

Here is what I used :

Tri-cide neo ( 2 pkgs ) follow instructions do not use anything other than distilled H2o
Vet wrap ( yellow) this stuff is great it totally sticks to itself . I used Yellow because I didn't want to use a color like red which might cause the other chickens to peck at it... I wanted it to look as normal as possible to them.
Duct-tape
Small cotton pads
Penicillin ( injectable buy it at feed store) I did not inject the birds with it...just used the needle /syringe to get the Rx out of glass sealed bottle then took needle off and used the open part of syringe to put some on cotton pad while dressing chickens foot. Keep this refrigerated !
Vaseline

1. Prepare the Tricide neo I used a small cat litter pan ( clean-not ever used ) poured the liquid into it. Just enough to barely cover a chickens foot while they are standing. Do not let your chicken drink this! I just kept my hand gently on bird while timing the soak for about 7 min .
2. Have your partner sitting in a chair and then after soak they will lift bird up putting the bird on their lap while laying the bird on its side so you can dry and wrap the feet with medicine ( I used clean animal towels to dry feet )
3. Dry foot
4 Get a sm. cotton pad and cut in quarters ( 4 pieces) take 1 piece and put Vaseline on it very thickly this makes it stick to the foot while you are preparing to wrap it and also will keep the birds foot moist which is extremely important as you don't want the bumble to dry out in between treatments.
5 Lift cotton pad up just enough to get end of syringe ( NO NEEDLE) between pad and foot and put some Penicillin in there,
6. Take a piece of vet wrap ( Don't forget to watch the video ) and start to wrap chickens foot I have found myself that once you get the top part stuck the rest will come together and then I used extra strips that I had already pre-cut to fill in where more wrap was needed .
7. take one final strip and wrap around the chickens ankle area ( guess its called that )? and then I take 1 more small strip of duct tape and go over the last wrap at ankle to secure it.

As I said in the beginning " this is time consuming" I can't guarantee that this will work for your chickens but it definitely worked for mine
I have read many responses for people who used this on BYC and other poultry sites but feel that maybe they didn't do the treatment long enough and gave up after having to do this every day until it was gone.

I had to dedicate about an hour and a half every day to my birds...but again I didn't want to cut on them pain meds or not . I preferred a different approach. I love my birds they all have names and I don't want to do anything that would be harmful to them in any manner. Some people have opted to cut on their birds ...that is a personal decision but I believe that all creatures feel pain and who are we to decide how they feel it ? Just my opinion don't mean to offend anyone .

Also one more thing that was changed we already had round roosts in our coop for the birds ( no square which some experts say can cause a pressure or sore on foot eventually causing bumblefoot)
We also raised up the floor in our coop instead of lowering roosts... either way we just added a couple of wood pallots then covered with plywood then lots of straw ...as I am sure most of you already know that if a bird is too heavy or just even up too high when they jump down off roosts that can... over time cause a bumble also.
Good luck everyone.


Good luck with getting rid of bumblefoot .

Thank you for taking your time to detail this. Many of us have not yet dealt with Bumblefoot, but bet we do. And all who have contributed their experiences will help us all!

 

[Cynthia12]

I personally like this gal and how she does it. I've done a few, and I like knowing it's out right away.

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2011/07/bumblefoot-causes-treatment-warning.html