A flock with bumblefoot: Journey back to health

[seminolewind]

I leave the Magnapaste on for 5 days, just changing it if it's dirty. On horses it's great for drawing abcesses out.

I think you should use your judgement about antibiotics. If she looks down or in pain I would think about it. I hope you can get that thing out, whatever it is.

 

[deacons]

Thanks, Seminole. Wish I had known about this product when one of our lesson horses was abcessing last week!! Anyway, I ran by the tack shop after work to pick some up. When I got to the counter with the poultice and a bunch of vet wrap, the lady who works there asked if my horse was ok. I laughed a little and explained this was actually for my chickens. The tack shop has a ton of chicken stuff (actually, it's where 6 of these girls came from) and staff who are pretty knowledgeable on poultry- so we had a long talk about bumblefoot and treatment. She was fascinated. She concurred that the Magna Paste is a safe product to leave on skin and sounded like it could help in this situation.

Also- I made a game changing purchase: a pair of bandage scissors! I can't tell you what an enormous difference this made in my bandage changes (vs. unwrapping every foot piece by piece). If you don't have these already, I can't recommend them enough. Best $6 I've spent in this whole process

We had heavy rain all day, but all of a sudden the skies cleared, and the girls got to have a little dry free range time after all. Here they are, looking peaceful- they didn't know what I was about to do to them though:


OK, so tonight, I was really motivated. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight thinking about soggy bandages eating away at their little legs, so I decided everyone needed bandages changed. I decided to prep all my bandages ahead of time, and then store them in a little tuperware container so flapping wings wouldn't ruin all my prep work and leave me scrambling to cut up more vet wrap with a bird on the table like last time.

Ready to go, armed with my new organized supplies:


I started grabbing birds as they headed in to roost. I have to brag a little, and say that I changed 8 bandages in less than 45 minutes by myself- I'm getting efficient at this!

I put the Magnapaste on 3 feet- Ro's foot that looked dirty/scabby, and both of Robin's feet. No pictures of Ro (it looks just like it did in the last pic of her I posted), but I did get some of Robin. Since the first treatment (Sunday, 5 days ago), I would say the scabs look less "angry" and a little less black, but the foot pads seem just as swollen (though no heat in the feet or legs, so I'm taking that as a good sign re: serious infection). Here are the feet (toes are just dirty, not infected):




Looking at this picture, I'm noticing for the first time the redness on that leg- it wasn't that obvious to me when I was working on the foot, but I was going quickly. Will keep an eye on that- not sure if it's just irritated by the bandage (she has not had a change since probably Monday), or infection.

I am hoping that this poultice will help draw the sores open or at least give me a clear way to get them opened up so I can get the nasty stuff out.

Also, I do want to add that I was actually quite surprised to find that the vet wrap was not gross and soggy as I expected. It wasn't bogged down in mud or anything from the rainy day. I know it's not waterproof, but it held up far better than I expected for a full day of rain. In actuality, I probably didn't really need to change all these bandages because it had been a rainy day. Good to know.

In some good news, you might remember that I had a couple who had tiny black scabs. I have been just spraying those with vetricyn daily, but no bandaging or surgery or anything. Well, tonight I was inspecting one of those, and it felt sort of dry and flaky- I flicked it with a fingernail, and it just popped right off, leaving a clean little hole underneath with no infection to speak of. However, lord knows we don't need another foot with an open hole in it, so I sprayed again with vetricyn but bandaged that one up for now to close up. That did make me feel good though- if you catch it when it's early and small, this gives me confidence you can heal it up without surgery.

 

[seminolewind]

It sounds like you are doing really really good! With the horse I used Magnapaste, a small kitchen towel or wash cloth folded and wrapped it with duct tape. But there was something else wrong.

I really am in awe of your organization and dedication! And the pics are great! You know there are probably hundreds of lurkers learning from this !

 

[deacons]

We had a huge swing in the weather last night- we could quite literally hear the new weather blowing in. Temps got really cool overnight (down to the low 50s) and the humidity completely broke. It's like we woke up, and fall was here.

I think this really sent some of the girls for a loop. My poor little Goldie came out of the coop this morning and laid right down, shivering and covering up her feet like it was the middle of the winter. She hasn't been acting right all day. I've been sitting outside with them for about an hour now, and instead of running all over the place digging and scratching and eating stuff, several of them are just sort of laying quietly, eating the grass that's near them and sort of dozing. I'm a bit worried, but it sort of makes sense given the very extreme change in weather (it's stayed in the low 60s here all day- so definitely not cold, but a very different kind of day than we've had recently). Here are Goldie, Ro, and Robin all snuggled up (eating any grass and herbs within reach):


I'm guessing everyone will be back to their perky selves tomorrow.

It actually got me wondering though, how much do chickens lie down/sleep during the day? I do certainly find them laying together as a group during the day if I go out to check water, let them out, etc. But I have to say I have almost never seen them just lie down when they are out of the run with the opportunity to free range.

 

[iwiw60]

We had a huge swing in the weather last night- we could quite literally hear the new weather blowing in. Temps got really cool overnight (down to the low 50s) and the humidity completely broke. It's like we woke up, and fall was here.

I think this really sent some of the girls for a loop. My poor little Goldie came out of the coop this morning and laid right down, shivering and covering up her feet like it was the middle of the winter. She hasn't been acting right all day. I've been sitting outside with them for about an hour now, and instead of running all over the place digging and scratching and eating stuff, several of them are just sort of laying quietly, eating the grass that's near them and sort of dozing. I'm a bit worried, but it sort of makes sense given the very extreme change in weather (it's stayed in the low 60s here all day- so definitely not cold, but a very different kind of day than we've had recently). Here are Goldie, Ro, and Robin all snuggled up (eating any grass and herbs within reach):


I'm guessing everyone will be back to their perky selves tomorrow.

It actually got me wondering though, how much do chickens lie down/sleep during the day? I do certainly find them laying together as a group during the day if I go out to check water, let them out, etc. But I have to say I have almost never seen them just lie down when they are out of the run with the opportunity to free range.

Your girls are just beautiful! And yes, we have had a sharp change in the weather out here in Central Oregon as well. Last night it hit 38....Quite a drastic change since just last week it would get down in the high 40's. My girls aren't acting too much differently except I've noticed they don't "chatter" as much these past few days. Like it or not, winter's on it's way and my list of things to do to batten down the hatches keeps growing...aaack!!

 

[seminolewind]

I guess I wouldn't like to see anyone shivering when it's in the 50's.

My chickens are out by 8am, and nap time is 10 and 2. Then they get treats at 4. Later than that they may take a short nap before bedtime. Most of the time mine are just hanging out together like yours are doing in the picture.
I know when we have a cold night, the first thing mine do is try to find some sun to lay in and warm up.

 

[tridentk9]

I read a blog the other day on oregano oil instead of antibiotics in humans. The other owner of one of my dogs had used oregano oil on both dogs and horses so I was interested. Several other products were also mentioned. Hmmm, withdrawal times might be bypassed. Something to look into. Sigh, not much except cooking tips if you google oil oregano chicken. Drat. Here's the blog....
https://www.azurestandard.com/blog/2014/8/27/antibiotics/

I did find this product, made for chickens.
http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/Chicken-Health/RopaPoultry-Oregano-Oil-Supplement-p1374.aspx

 

[deacons]

I guess I wouldn't like to see anyone shivering when it's in the 50's. 

Agreed! These girls have all been through at least one brutal NH winter, they know what cold really is!

This Goldie is making me a little worried. She laid down all day yesterday for no obvious reason-but I figured I'd give it 24 hours. She got on the roost in her normal spot last night, so I took that as a good sign.

This morning, I let everyone out as usual, and they all ran off on their merry way-except her again:

She just laid in front of the run, eating a little grass. About 20 min later, she did get up and join the flock.

She seems uncomfortable on her feet though (tucking them up towards her body). Neither feel hot, but I wonder if I made the bandages too tight or tweaked something the last time I changed them? Will continue to keep an eye on her.

In other news, I checked the two who aren't bandaged but just getting vetricyn-2 of 3 feet have just a tiny black dot that you can barely see at all. So for people dealing with a mild case, I really do think there's hope that this treatment option can work well!

 

[seminolewind]

Boy she has some expression on her face!

 

[deacons]

Day 7 Treatment

@seminolewind -you are a genius! The Magnapaste (left on for about 2 days with some gauze and wrapped in vet wrap) did exactly what it was supposed to and opened up Robin's sores! I couldn't believe it, I was rinsing her feet out with betadine solution, and as I was wiping them with a papertowel, the scab was wiping right off! This was the bird that two days ago, had really swollen blood-blister looking sores that I couldn't find a way to open up, it's just amazing. I dug around in the sores as much as I could since they felt hard under the scab, but didn't really come up with much to dig out. There was a good bit of blood and the holes were pretty deep. I flushed again with betadine, packed with neosporin, sprayed a gauze pad with vertricyn, and rewrapped. Here's one Robin's feet after I had it opened and cleaned out:


My little Goldie girl still isn't acting right. She was more alert and normal this morning (not doing the weird laying down from the last two days), but she seems to be having a really hard time with the handling and bandage changes. She was shaking like a leaf when I was working on her. Poor little thing breaks my heart. She's the lowest in the pecking order and does get harassed a lot by the others- but it's been like that since she was just a couple of days old. I just hate that she seems so thrown off by all this. I don't know that her feet look any better or worse to me, but seem to be continuing to heal up. I tried to wrap the vet wrap a little less tightly this time, as I don't know if the bandages were just really bothering her?




The other two (Pretty Girl and Ro) seem to generally be on the mend. I did chose to rebandage both of them, but I think these feet look like they're healing, right? I didn't really do anything to these except rinse, add neosporin, and rebandage.


One thing that I don't like is that they all look like they have a bit of red irritation on their legs- I can only imagine from having the bandages on. I just don't think any of them are ready to have the bandages off though, so not sure there's anything I can do at this point.

Here are Pretty Girl, Robin, Goldie, and Goldie #2 enjoying a sunny dustbath. It was cold and rainy yesterday, so this is a welcome change.