Silkie With Bumblefoot?

[ChickenPeep]

Hello everyone,

Let me preface this by saying that I am a grad student that lives at my parents house. If I seem uninvolved in this situation, that's why. My mom does most of the chicken work!

Recently, one of our silkies has developed swollen toes and feet. I noticed it about a week ago. Her toes are swollen to almost double, even triple the size. Since then the swelling is also in the base of her feet. In many areas she has white-ish patches that my mom believes to be pus. My mom has been taking very good care of her and has given her 5 days of penicillin injections, antibiotic ointment, and has been keeping her in our garage in a clean cage. She believes that it's bumblefoot and has been treating it as such. (Graphic) The day that we discovered it, she lanced a few of the white parts and drained gooey pus from them, cleaned them up, and bandaged them. But it's been almost a week and she doesn't seem much better. I wanted to come on here and ask if anyone has experience with this or advice as to what else to do. I originally thought bumblefoot to be an infection in the base footpad, not the toes. Can someone clarify this for me?

We are desperate to help our poor girl! Any help is greatly appreciated.

-Edited to add: I know pictures would be helpful, but I don't have any at the moment. I can upload some tomorrow (Thursday).

 

[humblehillsfarm]

Hello everyone,

Let me preface this by saying that I am a grad student that lives at my parents house. If I seem uninvolved in this situation, that's why. My mom does most of the chicken work!

Recently, one of our silkies has developed swollen toes and feet. I noticed it about a week ago. Her toes are swollen to almost double, even triple the size. Since then the swelling is also in the base of her feet. In many areas she has white-ish patches that my mom believes to be pus. My mom has been taking very good care of her and has given her 5 days of penicillin injections, antibiotic ointment, and has been keeping her in our garage in a clean cage. She believes that it's bumblefoot and has been treating it as such. (Graphic) The day that we discovered it, she lanced a few of the white parts and drained gooey pus from them, cleaned them up, and bandaged them. But it's been almost a week and she doesn't seem much better. I wanted to come on here and ask if anyone has experience with this or advice as to what else to do. I originally thought bumblefoot to be an infection in the base footpad, not the toes. Can someone clarify this for me?

We are desperate to help our poor girl! Any help is greatly appreciated.

-Edited to add: I know pictures would be helpful, but I don't have any at the moment. I can upload some tomorrow (Thursday).

Bumblefoot can take a long time to heal. If it is bumblefoot, it sounds like you're already doing the right things. Keep bandaging the foot, applying an antibiotic ointment helps, and penicillin is effective for bumblefoot.

The only thing that I've been told different is my avian vet stated surgery can sometimes worsen bumblefoot, which in my case the two feet I have successfully treated were recovered without surgery, and the one case that has had bumblefoot for two years now had surgery early on, and has never recovered despite multiple rounds of antibiotics, foot soaking, bandaging, etc. I've stopped treating for the last six months because I don't want her to become resistant to antibiotics. Finally, bumblefoot often has a hard core, and from what I know if even a tiny piece of the core remained after surgery, the bumblefoot is still present.

Definitely pics would be helpful if at all possible!