Black Scabs on Top of Rooster’s Feet

[tgchickens]

I noticed one of our roosters has done gnarly scabbing on the top/side of his foot directly under his spurs (which are large). It isn’t looking like bumble foot to me based on the location and just general appearance - no swelling or redness and all the other chickens seem fine. Looking for hopefully another opinion on it from someone who’s seen this before or what it could be?
I thought it could be from sparring or even poking himself with those spurs. Thoughts?

 

[Ebony Rose]

First order of business would be to give him a 20 minute warm bath, preferably with Epsom Salts and then dry his feet and legs from top of his legs to the tips of his toes (with the grain of his scales, not against the grain). Posting extra pictures when his feet are clean will help us better assess the damage. Please post some of the bottoms of his feet too as both appear inflamed and swollen.

It's likely that he got those long spurs hung up on something and in his effort to free himself, injured his toes. That's my best guess at the moment.

His feet and legs look beat up, and in one image it appears that the skin on his legs is peeling. Might add an oil rubdown (sunflower, olive or coconut oil are excellent options, vaseline if these cooking oils are not available to you) on his feet and legs to the above mentioned 'spa' treatment will smother mites and moisturize his skin.

My mom would advise that you bake a potato and while hot, apply it to those spurs to loosen them up and then with pliers remove them. Many ways to do it, and many solutions are posted on YouTube and in these forums. If you decide to remove the exterior of his spurs, keep some bleed-stop on hand in case the nail quick (interior portion) gets nicked, as they bleed quite a bit.

 

[tgchickens]

First order of business would be to give him a 20 minute warm bath, preferably with Epsom Salts and then dry his feet and legs from top of his legs to the tips of his toes (with the grain of his scales, not against the grain). Posting extra pictures when his feet are clean will help us better assess the damage. Please post some of the bottoms of his feet too as both appear inflamed and swollen.

It's likely that he got those long spurs hung up on something and in his effort to free himself, injured his toes. That's my best guess at the moment.

His feet and legs look beat up, and in one image it appears that the skin on his legs is peeling. Might add an oil rubdown (sunflower, olive or coconut oil are excellent options, vaseline if these cooking oils are not available to you) on his feet and legs to the above mentioned 'spa' treatment will smother mites and moisturize his skin.

My mom would advise that you bake a potato and while hot, apply it to those spurs to loosen them up and then with pliers remove them. Many ways to do it, and many solutions are posted on YouTube and in these forums. If you decide to remove the exterior of his spurs, keep some bleed-stop on hand in case the nail quick (interior portion) gets nicked, as they bleed quite a bit.

Thank you! I was going to do that this week to try to get a better look. We have three roosters and he’s at the bottom of the chain. They are not mean roosters but they do go after him a lot and make sure he knows he’s low man on the totem pole. So I thought maybe he got injured that way somehow. I was planning to try removing the spurs of his and his brother but want to make sure we tackle whatever this is first. I will try to add more photos after we get ahold of him to clean them up.

 

[Ebony Rose]

Gently yet firmly grab him off of his roost at night and place him into his prepared and waiting bath. You'll know the water is the right temperature when you can put your hand and wrist in the water and leave it there awhile without being burnt or experiencing discomfort.

It is possible that his brothers beat him up, but unless he was giving more than he was getting, it seems an odd location for them to injure him. Pecking and biting of the head, eyes, neck and spur wounds under the wing(s) are more common in brotherly rivalries as the dominant bird(s) typically take the low-man-on-the-totem-pole for a ride... (delicately said).

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I agree, looks like the spurs are jabbing into his toes, likely when roosting, since it's BOTH back toes in very similar locations.

Cut the spurs shorter with a dremel and smooth as needed with a file. Those are quite sharp.

Get the spurs cut first, there's not since in treating the injured toes until you do, since the spurs are just going to keep damaging them.
Once you have the spurs taken care of. Clean the toes, apply a small amount of triple antibiotic ointment, then I would wrap the whole foot. Check it daily.

Dry legs can be rubbed with vaseline.