advice please! i cant afford another vet visit

[thedoors5to1]

1) What type of bird , age and weight: Piper, male grey Indian Runner, about 5 monthes old. 4 pounds? maybe a little underwieght right now
2) What is the behavior, exactly: not running as fast as others due to possible bumblefoot, laying down more, scratching eyes .
3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms: 3 weeks
4) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma: foaming eye started today, scratching around his eyes, broken skin on feet
5) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation: foot injury
6) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all: flock raiser by blueseal feeds, scratch feed, micro greens which are gourmet salad sprouts (i work in a greenhouse that grows salad) food and veggie scraps.
7) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc: as of today it is sometimes solid, but a few really stinky runny ones (yellow colored)
8) What has been the treatment you have administered so far: soaking his feetsies in warm epsom salt water for 20+ minutes, applying diluted hydrogen peroxide to clean the wound after, applying triple antiobiotic ointment to the open sores on feet, and 1/2 cc of pen-g injections for 1 week so far once a day. i was bandaging but they keep falling off, im looking into buying some duck shoes from nettie.
9 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet: im looking to treat the bird comepletely myself as its kind of tight around the holidays right now, and considering im a student who's only job is part time.
10) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
11) Describe the housing/bedding in use: wooden bottom duck house with hay bedding, which has also been applied to around thier water sources fresh daily to keep down the muddiness

using my thumbnail in the top left hand corner of the picture which is 1/2 inch wide you can gauge his three potential bumblefoot spots are about 1/4 inch to almost a 1/2 inch wide, but protrude no more than an 1/8th an inch. the picture is really crappy i know, he doesnt have any of that cheesy crud everyone talks about, the darker area in the right hand spot you see are the dirty edges of his skin where its split, i havent seen any cheesy or plug like things that need to come out, he's def not to that stage yet. also he had another one of these spots on his other foot, but it went away after a week of treating with pen-g. it was barely as bad, merely nothing. so maybe i should just continue my regiment, but i was worried about his foaming, more like bubbly in the corner of his eye and being a little thin and slow in the cold. otherwise he's acting perfectly normal.

 

[ruth]

I don't see anything that I would be concerned about on his feet. Ducks can have pretty awful looking feet and it's not bumblefoot.

I would, however, be concerned about the foamy eyes - that's not normal. Maybe since he's scratching at the eyes, there's an irritant in his eye. You can always try rinsing the eyes with saline solution and apply antibiotic ointment. You can use regular Neosporin or get the the fancy eye stuff from the vet but my vet told me to just use Neosporin last time I bought the eye ointment from her.

 

[thedoors5to1]

i have used antibiotic ointment around his eye before, because he's had a previous injury where his eyelid on one eye was somehow injured. If anyone else could please give some suggestions, it would really help me out, i really do think these are hurting him, and i really dont want to go to the vet unless i really need to.

 

[thedoors5to1]

*bump* anyone please?

 

[dlhunicorn]

use sterile saline to flush the eye before applying an opthamalic antibiotic to the eye (it could be that when he scratches the eye that contaminants from the foot are introduced into the eye)
All I can think of would be to wash that legg/foot off daily with a chlorhexidine based product (hibiclens for instance) and keep the bird off the ground and everything really clean until both eye and foot injury are healed.

 

[thedoors5to1]

bump

 

[ruth]

I wish there were more things we could suggest but I honestly think you've been given the best/only suggestions that would apply to this case. The only other thing being to keep him isolated and ensure that he is eating enough (you said he was thin).

Based on what you've posted, and the fact you've already given him Pen-G for more than a week - I can't think of anything else to try. You didn't say how often or how long you've been soaking his feet. If you've been soaking them every day for the past few weeks and washing with diluted hydrogen peroxide and applying Neosporin I would suggest stopping. It could be that they can't heal because they are constantly being exposed to salt water and medical treatment. When I treat a bird for bumblefoot I don't do anything else once I've "operated" on them other than to wrap the wound for a few days till it closes up - then I take off the wrap and let the wound get exposed to air and to heal on its own.

As was suggested, just try keeping him isolated and dry with plenty of food and water and be sure he eats and keep treating the foaming eye with saline washing and antibiotic eye ointment.

Maybe someone else has something else they could suggest.

 

[thedoors5to1]

thankyou for your continued help ruth. i will continue to try and do the best that i can..

 

[cobrien]

there have been posts on here about foamy eyes - I can't remember what it was but many said there was a specific cause...I have a hard time finding old posts with the search feature but will try.

 

[DuckLady]

I would not panic yet either.

If you can keep him on a dry area with lots of bedding and keep his bedding as dry as possible, the cracked areas will likely heal.

You can put regular neosporin on his feet if you want, but you would have to bandage him up and I really don't think it is necessary at this point.

Just keep an eye on it and if as a wildlife rehabber you have access to informal avian vet advice, they might be able to give you more pointers or even meds if needed.