Limping hen, swollen foot, drained it today

[Crazie Eddie]

I wish I had taken before, during and after pictures. When we lanced her foot a kind of blood blister appeared at the top of her foot between the toes, which turned into a hard scab. After the first poultice application the "scab" looked like it would be ready to come off, and after the third, when I rinsed her foot, the two chucks just popped out of that hole.

I just mixed granulated sugar and iodine (I just had decolored, but I'm sure the regular red stuff would work) into a paste - not sure the proportions. Put the mix on a gauze pad, and vet wrapped it on her foot.

My local chicken guru and I have been theorizing that the circulation in a chickens foot is pretty limited, so that if there is an injury they don't loose too much blood. When they do get hurt, without the circulation the wound doesn't heal as well as it should. In most flocks, an injured birds would be "cured" with an application of sage, onion and dumplings....

We softies turn them into pets and can't bear the thought of them on the dinner table, and so find ourselves in uncharted territories.

It could be that the effect of the poultice pulling out the infection helps the circulation too.

Fake nails might be a great invention, I might work on the idea with Mildred's missing toe...

 

[BirdsOfAnarchy]

Thats great information. Thanks for sharing so happy your bird has some happy feet again.

 

[BirdsOfAnarchy]

Old post...but my Tootsies foot has gone back to almost normal size! Took about a month of great care. She still favors it but now walks on it much more frequently. I took off her bandages a few days ago and I let her be now. Her feathers are mostly all back and TODAY SHE LAID HER FIRST EGG!!!! Amazing!

I'm so proud of my little Tootz! What a trooper. Xoxo

I think I'm going to blow out the egg, decorate it and place it in an abandoned nest my husband brought home for me a few weeks ago. The nest sits so pretty in a small antique bird cage.

This egg will be celebrated.

 

[Crazie Eddie]

So glad to hear you've made progress too - well done you and well done Tootsie!

Mildred is still limping, but back with the flock and seems to be doing well...

 

[BirdsOfAnarchy]

They are resiliant little creatures

 

[TracyLovesDucks]

Hi Anarchy, glad to hear your chicken is doing better! She really is special, and fortunate you saved her from such a miserable life

I wonder if her dead toenails were rotting or something like that and causing an infection or reaction in her feet? Once the toenails fell off, was it up hill from there? I thought this because it sounds like once you started soaking in ES, they began falling off. Doesn't ES help remove toxins? So if the toenails were toxic to her feet, maybe the ES helped "remove" them.

Either way, glad she is doing better!