Bumblefoot

[kbgrover]

My 1 year old jumbo pekin has a black scab, possibly Bumblefoot, on the bottom of her foot and some swelling around the top/ankle. She is babying the foot immensely and prefers to sit or lay down and she is picking up the foot and tucking it under her wing. I know it’s very very sore as we have been trying to tend to the scab and see if there is any puss or infection underneath. So far there has been no oozing, pus or anything.

She is eating and drinking normally and is fully alert, she just is laying down most of the time due to the pain in her foot.

We are doing an epsom salt bath daily, spraying with antimicrobial and wrapping the foot with Neosporin and keeping her in a dry clean area. We just noticed this yesterday. How long until we see improvement or when should we seek vet attention? I have called around to vets in my area and no one is willing to take her so we are on our own at the moment. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.

I am very worried of infection spreading, we are going to get oregano from the store and add a little bit into her food.

Please reach out with any advice or help!! We love our babies.

 

[EmmaRainboe]

I am assuming ducks are like chickens, in that they do not have liquid pus, so there would be no "oozing." It will be very cheesy and hard, so you will have to dig it out with tweezers rather than just squeezing.

My standard procedure when dealing with bumblefoot is as follows:

soak the foot in a diluted iodine solution for ten minutes.

Pull off the scab and remove any pus and gunk.

fill with anti-biotic ointment and wrap.

Repeat for multiple days.

 

[kbgrover]

I am assuming ducks are like chickens, in that they do not have liquid pus, so there would be no "oozing." It will be very cheesy and hard, so you will have to dig it out with tweezers rather than just squeezing.

My standard procedure when dealing with bumblefoot is as follows:

soak the foot in a diluted iodine solution for ten minutes.

Pull off the scab and remove any pus and gunk.

fill with anti-biotic ointment and wrap.

Repeat for multiple days.

Thank you so much!!! This makes more sense, we will keep repeating the process until it hopefully clears up. Is there anything we can give her as a natural antibiotic or when should I worry about the infection spreading into bones/joints/blood stream?

 

[CoriM]

That is a pretty bad case of bumblefoot. I had a pekin with a big bumble like that in the same place. You will definitely need to pull the scab after soaking, try to pull out any yellow gunky tissue, then pack it with triple antibiotic ointment (not the kind with pain reliever), cover with a gauze pad and wrap the foot with vet wrap. Then keep the duck in a clean dry area - shavings, not mud, and no swimming until it scabs over. You may need to repeat this process many times. I had to treat my duck for almost 9 months before her case completely healed over and the tissue became normal again. I will find some threads with pictures of what I was dealing with and how I wrapped the duck foot.

 

[CoriM]

 

[CoriM]

This thread has photos of how I bandaged the foot - the bandage stayed on and it worked for me. Everytime I worked on the scab I left it bandaged for a couple days until it scabbed over and then let her swim.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/another-bumblefoot-question.1511600/#post-25411069

 

[kbgrover]

That is a pretty bad case of bumblefoot. I had a pekin with a big bumble like that in the same place. You will definitely need to pull the scab after soaking, try to pull out any yellow gunky tissue, then pack it with triple antibiotic ointment (not the kind with pain reliever), cover with a gauze pad and wrap the foot with vet wrap. Then keep the duck in a clean dry area - shavings, not mud, and no swimming until it scabs over. You may need to repeat this process many times. I had to treat my duck for almost 9 months before her case completely healed over and the tissue became normal again. I will find some threads with pictures of what I was dealing with and how I wrapped the duck foot.

So far, we have been pulling at what we can of the scab but it isn’t coming off very easily. I had her foot soaking for over 30 minutes trying to soften the scab to remove it. We plan to keep soaking and trying to pull off what we can without causing more damage to her foot, spraying with antimicrobial and wrapping with antibiotic ointment. I don’t know what else to do, I really don’t want her to become severely ill and pass.

 

[CoriM]

Eventually I had to get a scalpel and carefully cut some of the scab off. It's rough but it's the only way you can get at the infection. If you can find a vet, great, they will do what is needed. Otherwise, you don't want it to spread to the bone. It won't get better on its own unfortunately. The larger ducks are more prone to bumble. I completely feel for you. My duck and I dealt with it for so long, daily soaks, constant bandaging and working on her foot, and on the day her scab completely disappeared she went lame. These large ducks are unfortunately bred for meat, so keeping them as pets has a lot of heartache and potential trouble involved. I hope the best for you and your feathered friend!

 

[kbgrover]

Eventually I had to get a scalpel and carefully cut some of the scab off. It's rough but it's the only way you can get at the infection. If you can find a vet, great, they will do what is needed. Otherwise, you don't want it to spread to the bone. It won't get better on its own unfortunately. The larger ducks are more prone to bumble. I completely feel for you. My duck and I dealt with it for so long, daily soaks, constant bandaging and working on her foot, and on the day her scab completely disappeared she went lame. These large ducks are unfortunately bred for meat, so keeping them as pets has a lot of heartache and potential trouble involved. I hope the best for you and your feathered friend!

Yeah we got the scalpel out as well but still couldn’t quite get in there yet. Do you think what we have going on is treatable with the right treatment?? I’ve been doing everything you’ve recommended so far

 

[CoriM]

Yes, I think it's treatable. After some time my scab became light brown and I took her to the vet and he said there was no active infection, just tissue that hand been stressed and had not healed yet. I would try what's been recommended for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. I don't think my duck going lame had anything to do with her bumble.