Bumble...toe?

[rsallison]

Two weeks ago - I noticed that one of my girls was limping really badly, and had a very swollen toe.
I looked at my "Raising Chickens for Dummies" and it looked like what they defined as bumblefoot. Swollen, with black scab...etc. So I put her in the dog kennel, got antibiotics from the vet and proceeded to treat for 14days.
Now - She is still in the kennel, but walking without limping and getting pretty sick of being cooped up (parden the pun). She's starting to throw the bedding around and knock over her water. She's got lots of energy and has no problem eating.
My question - the toe is still swollen, but not seeming to be bothering her at all. I looked on the forum, and all the bumblefoot picks are the pad of the food, nothing about the toe. Can I put her back with the others now? Do I need to try to lance it, even though she's been on antibiotics? Could it just be deformed now because of the infection?
It seems to me that she would be limping if it was still a problem.
Thanks for any advice!

 

[teach1rusl]

You could go either way. Personally, if she wasn't limping any longer, I'd probably reintegrate her without opening the scabbed area. I guess ideally the scab would have been opened/drained followed by the antibiotics. So the antibiotics probably stopped what was causing the inflamation, but there may still be some swelling because of the material that was already there. I would presume that material will eventually be reabsorbed back into the body???