A flock with bumblefoot: Journey back to health

[deacons]

Day 9 Treatment (Tuesday)

Did another round of bandage changes yesterday. This was the first change for Robin after the magnapaste had opened up the sores on her feet. Scabs have formed, but the feet still look swollen:



The pads of her feet are sort of squishy though, not hard like they were before. I'm not sure if I need to try to get them opened back up and try to get more stuff out, or if this is part of the process. For now, I simply reapplied neosporin, and rewrapped.

The others have foot pads that sort of look like a deflated balloon. You can see where the skin is settling back after being so swollen. However, some of them do have large, hard, black scabs on them. For example, like this on Pretty Girl's feet:

The scab is sort of raised, so I could probably pull it off and reopen. But am not sure if that's something I should do? Wouldn't want to delay the healing process by reopening, but I'm not sure if this is just still bumblefoot infection actually needing another round of draining?

One other thing I noticed, Ro had blisters between a couple of her "toes" on each foot. Looks like irritation from the tape rubbing. When I rewrapped her, I put the gauze pad on so that it was a bit of a buffer between the toes, and tried to keep the vet wrap very thin so it wasn't bunching up. Hopefully that helps. She and Goldie were both being too squirmy to take pics of (and I was by myself this time around), so no pictures of them- but Goldie continues to look like she's healing up (her pads have that "deflated balloon" look too, but not the same hard scabs).

 

[seminolewind]

I think as long as the swelling keeps going down, it's fine. On my last rooster, the swelling went down a bit after removing one kernel. But 2 more bumps came to surface as well. Which had been good because the stuff brought the other 2 to the surface.

 

[larcie]

Sorry to jump in on your post but I'm looking for help and everyone here seems real Knowledgeable.

Two of my chickens have black , flat scabs on their feet. Some swelling, not heat or redness.
I socked and pulled off the scabs but no plug/core or whatever it's called came out with the scab. I squeezed for a while but nothing but a bit of blood came out, no white stringy stuff, no puss.
Could this still be bramble foot or something else?

 

[iwiw60]

Quote:
From what I see I think the reason there is still swelling on this one is because you have not removed the kernel that's down in there. Unless that is removed it will be an ongoing thing I fear...JMHO

 

[rnchick74]

Day 9 Treatment (Tuesday)

Did another round of bandage changes yesterday. This was the first change for Robin after the magnapaste had opened up the sores on her feet. Scabs have formed, but the feet still look swollen:



The pads of her feet are sort of squishy though, not hard like they were before. I'm not sure if I need to try to get them opened back up and try to get more stuff out, or if this is part of the process. For now, I simply reapplied neosporin, and rewrapped.

The others have foot pads that sort of look like a deflated balloon. You can see where the skin is settling back after being so swollen. However, some of them do have large, hard, black scabs on them. For example, like this on Pretty Girl's feet:

The scab is sort of raised, so I could probably pull it off and reopen. But am not sure if that's something I should do? Wouldn't want to delay the healing process by reopening, but I'm not sure if this is just still bumblefoot infection actually needing another round of draining?

One other thing I noticed, Ro had blisters between a couple of her "toes" on each foot. Looks like irritation from the tape rubbing. When I rewrapped her, I put the gauze pad on so that it was a bit of a buffer between the toes, and tried to keep the vet wrap very thin so it wasn't bunching up. Hopefully that helps. She and Goldie were both being too squirmy to take pics of (and I was by myself this time around), so no pictures of them- but Goldie continues to look like she's healing up (her pads have that "deflated balloon" look too, but not the same hard scabs).

I'd be tempted to open them back up...they still look like they might have smaller kernels in there. I know you got good size kernels with at least one of these chickens (sorry - didn't go back and reference which ones), but with the excellent care you have been giving & the magnapaste, there might be more as it is not uncommon.

 

[seminolewind]

Sorry to jump in on your post but I'm looking for help and everyone here seems real Knowledgeable.

Two of my chickens have black , flat scabs on their feet. Some swelling, not heat or redness.
I socked and pulled off the scabs but no plug/core or whatever it's called came out with the scab. I squeezed for a while but nothing but a bit of blood came out, no white stringy stuff, no puss.
Could this still be bramble foot or something else?

I think I have 3 more chickens outside that have black spots but no swelling. I'll wait on them.

Larcie, that's kindof what we are talking about, wrapping feet it Epsom salt gel for a few days to try to get that "plug" to come to surface and make it easier to take out. I think it's easier to do this for 4-5 days before even starting.

 

[seminolewind]

Day 9 Treatment (Tuesday)

Did another round of bandage changes yesterday. This was the first change for Robin after the magnapaste had opened up the sores on her feet. Scabs have formed, but the feet still look swollen:



The pads of her feet are sort of squishy though, not hard like they were before. I'm not sure if I need to try to get them opened back up and try to get more stuff out, or if this is part of the process. For now, I simply reapplied neosporin, and rewrapped.

The others have foot pads that sort of look like a deflated balloon. You can see where the skin is settling back after being so swollen. However, some of them do have large, hard, black scabs on them. For example, like this on Pretty Girl's feet:

The scab is sort of raised, so I could probably pull it off and reopen. But am not sure if that's something I should do? Wouldn't want to delay the healing process by reopening, but I'm not sure if this is just still bumblefoot infection actually needing another round of draining?

One other thing I noticed, Ro had blisters between a couple of her "toes" on each foot. Looks like irritation from the tape rubbing. When I rewrapped her, I put the gauze pad on so that it was a bit of a buffer between the toes, and tried to keep the vet wrap very thin so it wasn't bunching up. Hopefully that helps. She and Goldie were both being too squirmy to take pics of (and I was by myself this time around), so no pictures of them- but Goldie continues to look like she's healing up (her pads have that "deflated balloon" look too, but not the same hard scabs).

When I got one plug out with my roo, I wrapped him again with magnapaste and it made 2 more bumps look very obvious. Like right at the surface there were lumps that weren't there before but they were there, it's just I couldn't find them .

 

[deacons]

Thanks all, I can definitely reopen them and see if there's something in there that I missed or that is now closer to the surface. Crazy at work for the next two days, so the next opportunity to really do this will be Saturday. We'll see how things look then.

 

[deacons]

Sorry to jump in on your post but I'm looking for help and everyone here seems real Knowledgeable.

Two of my chickens have black , flat scabs on their feet. Some swelling, not heat or redness.
I socked and pulled off the scabs but no plug/core or whatever it's called came out with the scab. I squeezed for a while but nothing but a bit of blood came out, no white stringy stuff, no puss.
Could this still be bramble foot or something else?

Glad you found the thread. I'm definitely not an expert, but it sounds like it could be bumblefoot. Did you wrap the feet back up after pulling out the scabs so it doesn't get reinfected?

 

[deacons]

Day 13 Treatment

Feeling a little bit down about treatment today. Looked at 10 feet, and I would say 6 out of 10 didn't look much different than three days ago, 2 looked maybe worse, and two looked a little better. I'm just feeling like I don't really know enough to know if I'm doing all this right. For example, I really can't tell if a scab is a good, healing scab or an infected, still-bumblefoot scab. Since I couldn't tell the difference, my strategy today was to change all bandages and put Magnapaste on all of them, which I will check again on Monday and then determine what to do (probably re-open, try to get as much infection out as I can, and then go from there).

The biggest bummer is that one of the chickens that had what I thought was a pretty mild case in both feet actually looked a bit worse in one foot today. I've been spraying both feet with Vetricyn almost every night, and on one foot the black spot has definitely been shrinking. The other though was going in the wrong direction. So today I wrapped that one in Magnapaste and expect to have to open it up on Monday.

One small good piece of progress- Goldie's feet seem to be going in the right direction, and she was much less upset about the while process today. Here's one of her feet:



And enjoying a little snack afterwards: