Vet suggestion for non-invasive bumblefoot cure

[mdbokc]

I now have 2 girls with small bumblefoot. We are going to experiment with two products, one on each bird. The first is North American Herb and Spice P73 super strength Oregano. I have successfully used to to cure MRSA when antibiotics all failed. I want to see the results here.

The second is Grapefruit Seed Extract by Nutribiotic. IT also is very successful at taking care of staph infections. Starting the treatments tonight.

Would not have thought of these had not been for this thread on soaking treatment.

Thanks.

 

[ArizonaNessa]

That is awesome. Please do let us know if and what works. There are quite a few people that can't do the surgery and many vets will not even see a chicken. I think it would be wonderful to find an easier way such as the soaks to cure this rather simple problem other than cutting or injections. Also if anyone else tries the Tricide-Neo stuff please post your experiences.

For those that can't find or don't know, Here is goat heads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribulus_terrestris

These things are super hard and tougher than the hubs of h-e-double toothpicks. They will do serious damage to bare feet and bicycle tires will have to go to heaven if you accidentally run through a patch.

Edit: please note the pictures, first one is pretty, second one is not so bad, third one is down right evil!!!

Here is my favorite quote from the link above and this pretty much sums up what I was trying to say about goat heads

"It has been reported that the seeds or nutlets have been used in homicidal weapons in southern Africa; murderers smear them with the poisonous juice of Acokanthera venenata and put them where victims are likely to step.[6]"

 

[ultasol]

We have goat heads here too. The day we closed on our property I spent all day pulling goat heads. I filled two 90gallon trash barrels full of the stuff, and I jumped up and down on the stuff int he garbage cans to try to make room for more. Two years later we are still fighting it, although it is not nearly as bad. The seeds are very long lived, which means the seed bed can contain viable seed decades after a plant has been seen in that location.

Darn weeds.

 

[ChooksChick]

Well, several of us here have had issues w/ bumblefoot lately, and so I decided to order the bigger of the two sizes of this stuff- doesn't hurt that I keep big goldfish in my backyard pond and occasionally consider treating for various ailments.

I ordered the pack that makes 5 gallons for $56, free shipping, from http://www.koiacres.com/ and expect it soon! I'll let you all know how it works, since I have a roo and a runner duck with issues right now.

The real test will be a friend's birds- she has 2 girls who have had it get under the nail on their middle toes, which are swollen like sausages and a plug where the nail used to be! Could anything be worse?

 

[ultasol]

Please do let us know how it works for you. I have a duck with the beginnings of bumblefoot right now, which is a bummer as I was going to take her to a show in April.

 

[SuzanneBacon]

Would you give them straight grapefruite seed extract or apply it to the actual foot. Internal or external. I like the idea of taking care of it this way other than performing surgery myself. Thanks,

Suzanne

 

[mdbokc]

I am using the Grapefruit Seed Extract full strength externally. I apply a couple of drops and just have the girl lay calmly on her side while it soaks in. No decision on internally as it really is a bacteria (and virus) killer in people when taken internally and I don't want to go there with her.

My premise is that I am treating it like I would a toe fungus (which is extraordinarily hard for standard medicine to treat but GSE handles easily). Application full strength. Now with toe fungus, if it's really bad, can take 30 days to kill it out so I am expecting this to take awhile. Might be surprised and have it happen quickly. Just doing it now.

 

[Kazzandra]

This is VERY interesting to me, as I am having a problem with bumblefoot that I have not seen the likes of doucmented on this board. Most people find it early and pull the plug, but I found it much too late and am not stumbling in the dark.

I have a rooster with a very bad petrified case of bumblefoot. He's been on a month of antibiotics and I believe that the infection is dead, leaving just the hard lump. I do not know if it will ever go away, but by the time I caught it (I knew nothing of it just a month ago), the vet said it was too hard to lance, and that he would probably get reinfected much worse if he could manage it. And I totally believed him, because I had tried soaking him for half an hour the day before and the scab had healed over it so much that I couldn't seem to pull out just the old SCAB. Cutting it? Well, I didn't try, but if the vet wouldn't do it, I doubt that I could have done better.

The vet recommended ichthammol to me, which was a new treatment to me after reading all about it on the boards here. It's a schist tar, often referred to as black salve, and it takes care of boils and staph on humans over a few days.

Thing is that people can bandage themselves and tend to know not to wear the stuff off before it can work. I can't keep this rooster bandaged with vetwrap. He has a history-- he was a gender change rooster and has since he was four months plucked out his own tail feathers, much to my dismay. In fact, I discovered he had bumblefoot when he was finally growing back in tail feathers and he plucked them out the next day. I went to furtively apply Rooster Booster only to discover those lumps <sigh>.

Before this he loved to sit and sun in my lap, and so I hate, hate, hate to medicate him. I was so happy today when he bumbled up to me and jumped in my lap for a bit, even if he didn't let down his guard. One foot seems to be healing and getting smaller after bursting a few weeks ago but the other still hurts him... I really don't know what to do with him now. I guess I could let him recover from the antibiotics for a week and then give him Tylan 50-- I want to make sure the staph is truly DEAD so it doesn't infect his bloodstream and kill him. Also, I don't want it spreading-- the horrid mutant it would be if it survived a month of two different antibiotics.

The only hen I didn't raise that actually predates this flock (a gift from a professor of mine-- lulz) brought the bumblefoot and scaly feet mites and perhaps CRD with her, and so far, that is the only other one to have a bumblefoot mark between her toes. She has also been on a month of antibiotics (amoxicillan 250-500 mg and then tetracycline at the vet's recpmmendation).. I spread ichthammol all over her foot once and her scales started raising off her feet. I don't know yet if it killed all the scaly feet mite that the Ivermectin couldn't handle as they were living in the dead skin at every dosage or if I did something I shouldn't, so she hasn't gotten a second application, so I still don't know if the ichthammol actually works.

I think I actually have some grapefruit seed extract in my cabinet for making potporri, so I'd be glad to apply it externally and see what happens. I would imagine it absorbs instead of sitting on the skin, meaning if I can hold him for a bit, it will absorb.

The girls know he's not fully healthy and I walked out to the coop today to discover my doll of a rooster not only without tail feathers, but completely debearded.

*sigh*

And you know this flock has been absolutely healthy, egg-a-day layers before this-- even through winter? Now I have two girls laying, and four not laying at all. I did a very stupid thing as I am in grad school and during the final push for papers I let a family member take care of them-- probably three weeks. This is before all of this happened. I returned to the coop one night and they all talked quite a bit and acted odd, but I wasn't paying much attention as I was concerned with the amount of weight two of the girls had lost. I read on here a few weeks ago that I was DEAD TO THEM. You would think as someone who tends parrots that I would have thought of that. It was as if I had returned from the dead. I bet this was time when the rooster contracted this, as only a week or two later I discovered that huge lumps.

Merck Vet Manual says:

Although the prognosis for complete recovery is poor, in most cases the foot heals sufficiently to allow adequate locomotion after ~2 mo.

I do see one digit that looks permanently deformed, but not enough to prevent locomotion. We still have another month to go. Wish me luck.​

 

[mdbokc]

I have that black salve too. Putting that on the list for the next one. I forgot all about that. Thanks for bringing it up!

And good luck on your rooster!

 

[xke4]

Any idea about what concentration this fish stuff needs to be?