I just discovered that several of my chickens have bumblefoot - most in the very early stages (have to look at the bottoms of their feet to see it).
I read all the how-tos and thought I knew what I was doing, but now I'm stuck and scared. We chose the hen with the worst case (she has a large swollen area on one of her toes with a very tiny scab at the bottom of her pad) to start with. We washed and then sanitized her feet with betadine. I picked off the scab (very small) with the scalpel from my daughter's dissection kit (sanitized it first). There is now a very small hole that just keeps bleeding. No pus when I squeeze - just blood. It hurts her every time I try to cut or squeeze at it. I don't know how deep I'm supposed to cut and am afraid of hurting her. My daughter is in there now holding her still (the hen has a towel over her head). How deep do I go? Do I cut deeper where the scab is or do I cut where the most swollen area is? Any advice would be helpful!
I read all the how-tos and thought I knew what I was doing, but now I'm stuck and scared. We chose the hen with the worst case (she has a large swollen area on one of her toes with a very tiny scab at the bottom of her pad) to start with. We washed and then sanitized her feet with betadine. I picked off the scab (very small) with the scalpel from my daughter's dissection kit (sanitized it first). There is now a very small hole that just keeps bleeding. No pus when I squeeze - just blood. It hurts her every time I try to cut or squeeze at it. I don't know how deep I'm supposed to cut and am afraid of hurting her. My daughter is in there now holding her still (the hen has a towel over her head). How deep do I go? Do I cut deeper where the scab is or do I cut where the most swollen area is? Any advice would be helpful!
