Bumblefoot and...diarrhea?

[Rathornis]

Tl;dr, I'm treating a hen with bumblefoot who has started having diarrhea, and don't know if these are connected.

The long version:
About 3 weeks ago I noticed my largest hen (1 yo black Australorp; 8-10 lb and in good flesh) laying down and panting, with a pale comb. They had just been moved into a new shed that was a little stuffy and it was a warm day, but due to cool off soon. I decided on watchful waiting.

Over the next weeks I would catch her laying down now and then and occasionally panting. She stopped laying, or else was hiding eggs. She seemed otherwise fine, readily foraging, first in line for put-away treat, and getting up and down from perches without trouble. A quick feel of her keel, belly, and crop didn't show anything alarming (Keel palpable but not sharp, belly soft and malleable, crop full in evening and empty by morning.) She laid an egg the day after I checked her over. None of my other birds have shown any problems.

But on Thursday night (the 3rd), I noticed she had swelling between her toes on one foot. Bumblefoot on both!


On Friday she wound up getting a total 45-minute Epsom soak to loosen them, and I was able to get most of the smaller (left foot) corn out. The other was just too stubborn and I only managed to take off some surface gunk, and hoped the packing and dressing would help. Neither had much pus, just hard dry matter. She was put in an isolation cage after, where I've noticed only normal droppings--but it's open-bottomed, so any diarrhea might have fallen through onto straw and shavings.

Today was her second soak and debridement. The better foot seemed to be healing--no discharge or discoloration, and very little that was in obvious need of removal. I tried to remove more bulk from the right foot, but it was again extremely difficult to grip, and she was fighting me even with her head covered and wings wrapped, so I wasn't comfortable using a scalpel. I got what I could and packed both again with a sugar-Neosporin mix (can't get to town for Betadine until tomorrow) and a doughnut-shaped pad to take the pressure off.


During the course of this, she had two nearly liquid bowel movements (one into her foot bath and one on me, naturally. What a majestic animal.) which has me worried.


Could it have been from the stress of being manhandled and having a wound picked it? Or should I be investigating some other reason for it?

Also, is there anything else I should be doing for her feet, or doing differently?

 

[coach723]

It's possible it's stress. It does appear that there is more that needs to be cleaned out, in your pictures. What you are calling hard, dry matter, is probably pus. Chicken pus is more firm, kind of like cheese, and creamy pale yellow colored. The pus often will adhere to the tissue, so it can take some work to get it out sometimes. I've found that the be the case in most of my birds, I rarely get one that just pops out easily and completely. Sometimes it's a judgement call whether to keep going to get it all out at once, or to do several shorter sessions to get it all. If you have help, someone to help hold her, it can help. I wrap mine in a bath towel like a burrito with only their head sticking out, cover their head with a lighter towel to block their vision, and lay them on their back, that often works. But for really difficult, flighty birds, I have someone help hold them. When it's hard to get cleaned out, the packing with sugardine between times will help with future cleaning attempts. It will slow the regeneration, and eventually allow you to get it all out and then the sugardine will help it heal up from the inside out.

 

[Rathornis]

Thank you for your response. It's my first time treating bumblefoot, so I wasn't completely sure at what point I needed to stop digging and let things progress on their own. It's just not possible to pull away the plug material in this case, so I think next time I treat her, I'll try a pair of curved surgical scissors so neither of us gets gouged by accident.

I'll see what I can do for a more secure restraint, and possibly getting help. I've been using a sash of T-shirt material tied around her body so it has some 'give' and her breathing doesn't get restricted, then tucking her under my arm on the counter. I'm worried a towel will overheat her--The area I have to work in isn't particularly cool and she's a heavy, fluffy bird--so would it be reasonable to lay her (in a towel) on an ice pack?

I'll probably treat her again on Wednesday, and try to get as much out as possible in one go so she can start healing up--even if a longer session is more stressful, it means fewer overall, hopefully. Cruel to be kind, I suppose. Also, if she's having such...voluminous fluid loss...while being treated, should I be putting electrolytes in her water after?

Thanks again, and I'll keep updated here.

 

[coach723]

If she's very stressed you could put electrolites in the water for half the day, and plain fresh water the rest of the day.
I have found that a curette like the one pictured below can help when cleaning out bumblefoot (I got one on amazon), it's like a tiny spoon and not sharp like a blade. They come in different sizes. I usually work on my birds in the kitchen (maybe that sounds gross), but I put down a plastic garbage bag and then thick towels over it and lay the bird on top of all that. The towels go in the wash and everything else (paper towels, etc) goes in the trash bag when I'm done. It's just easier for me, good working height, close to anything I might forget and have to go get, good lighting.

 

[Rathornis]

Quick update for the day; I know there's a lot of bumblefoot threads but hope this might be useful to someone.

Made some progress with my husband's chicken-restraining skills and a scalpel--curettes are theoretically in the mail but won't be here until next week (#JustRuralCanadaThings)--but I wound up causing more bleeding than I was comfortable with. I thought I was only getting into the hard pus material but clearly not, so I had to back off before I really had gotten as much gunk out as I wanted. There are still some yellow areas visible here.

The pinker areas are where blood was welling up again; everything under them was still firm and either yellow or white, so I'm not sure what I was nicking. Both feet got cleaned out to about the same depth.

If nothing else, she's more comfortable in the bath--the past two times she'd just scrunch her neck down to hide. Today she was watching bugs go by out the window and talking to me a bit, so I'll take the wins I can!

 

[coach723]

It looks much better than it did, so good job. Sometimes it just takes more than once. If you pack that with sugardine daily, see how it goes, if you need to clean again it will likely be less than this time, and reduce a little every time. It's not a problem to let the bird rest for a day or two (or three) between cleanings, just repack it daily. Bumblefoot is a slow process at best.

 

[Rathornis]

Bit of an update. Things are kind of plodding along after a week; nothing's getting worse for this bird--no additional redness, swelling, enlarging of corns--but if she's improving, it's slow. She's still getting Epsom soaks every other day, time permitting, and hasn't had any diarrhea for the last couple. I have to assume it really was from the stress of getting passed around like a football.

Forgot to get the pictures after cleaning these up yesterday, but I was able to pull away all the flaky yellow matter on her feet, including that small secondary scab on the one foot, and everything looked very normal and healthy under it. I pulled a little on the scabs and was able to trim some of the edges of them, so it might be that the diameter of the sores are shrinking, but it's hard to say without a photo to compare.



In fact, she's been walking well enough that she's been put back out to forage, with a bit of extra duct tape to keep dirt out of the wrappings. (She's also gained weight while in henspital, which can't help her healing.)

I haven't done any further cutting since the last update. I feel like her right foot (the lower one in this post) has more matter to remove and might benefit from it, but as I might end up out of town for the end of the month, I've wanted to give them as long as possible to scab over and be "sealed" enough to go without bandages while I'm gone. My mother-in-law has indicated she would change bandages for me if she had to, but I'd really owe her one.

On the upside, if I did travel, I have a line on Fox dermal curettes which would be ideal for cleaning out an ulcer like this. Even if this hen didn't need it when I got back, they'd be good to have for the next time someone ends up in foot jail.