Bumblefoot, or just a tumor?

Also typically with a Penicillin shot you will have to have a syringe with a larger gauge needle, it's quite thick and has particles that will stop up a smaller one.

Let us know what you find.
 
I would do the surgery if it were me. If it is a cyst, tumor, growth or bumblefoot it will feel better having it out. Also, if the infection goes to the bone or bloodstream, it will probably be too late.
 
I think I'm going to try and do the surgery on him tomorrow. Then I'll do the penicillin shots following that, and for the four days AFTER, to help prevent any possible new infections caused by the open wounds.

I've got both alcohol and peroxide ready as well. I'm going to pick up some type of extra-sharp blade tomorrow, because box cutters just won't do it for me. I'll soak everything else in alcohol tonight, and have the peroxide ready to clean the wound every single day after I cut the growth off until it heals up. Hopefully that will also stop re-infection. One of my friends also suggested pertroleum jelly to cover the wound and keep the wound-dressing from getting stuck to it.

And in the meantime, I'll have one of my nephews fashion a wire "splint" out of the metal bars we use around here for signs. After it's all said and done, I'll try to bend the toe back into position as much as possible, and splint it there. I might try to head to lowes at some point, and look for some really thin metal tubing or piping so I can splint it in a way that forces it to stay out, but still allow 100% blood flow.


I'm a little nervous about all of this, and worried how well he is going to walk afterwards. I'm not worried about the "surgery" part, I am just worried about the end result. I've had a chick with his entire head pecked wide open, and it survived, so I know they are very hardy animals, compared to mammals. I just want to make sure my little boy will be able to walk. "Same or better" is what I'm hoping for here, and I think chances are pretty high that it will happen.
 
I was actually going to use a store-brand version of neosporin for the petroleum jelly. Neosporin is really just medicated petroleum jelly anyway.

The peroxide thing actually makes me wonder. I had ingrown toenail surgery once before, and I was told to clean it twice a day for 2 weeks with peroxide. But it didn't heal, and it hurt so bad everytime I did clean it. At the end of the two weeks, I couldn't put any pressure on my toes at all! So I started to just rinse it off and get rid of the excess blood, and it healed up in no time after that. So that makes sense to say peroxide causes healing issues - at least on deep wounds (my wounds went down to my bones in my toes).

I'll pick up some hibiclens from Wal-Mart today!
 
That is a very interesting growth.. I haven't seen anything like that before. I agree with not using the peroxide, it can damage healthy tissue which can hinder healing. Good luck with the surgery.. hope all goes well!
 
My concern, if it IS a growth/tumor.......it could be wrapping around nerves and blood vessels, and potentially paralyze the foot.
I think I would make a very small incision in it, and if it appears to be all pus, then I might be more inclined to just squeeze as much out as possible, and feel for a core. If the texture seems more like a tumor..........I think I'd leave it alone......unless it is very compartmentalized, and you feel like you could just pop it out..............but its probably connected to something. Whether that "something" is important to the chicken or not.....you won't know until you take it out.
Good luck!!
 
Alright, here is the result.

Most of it I judged by how much Harry reacted when I cut, touched, or opened a certain area. He DID have an infection in there. But a lot of it... is fleshy. I wasn't able to pull out any plugs, but I did get lots of cheesy mess. The entire bump ended up being cut in a criss-cross pattern and I squeezed all of it, long after cutting. I even removed an entire piece of skin about 1cm wide, and 2cm long.

The infection looks like it was caused by... an ingrown feather. Keep in mind that this SHOULD be the top of his toe - it shouldn't be underneath him at all. So he's always quite literally walking on feather shafts that want to grow. And it looks like one failed to break through the skin because it has his toe turned upside down so he's walking on the mass.

But even though I didn't find a plug, I did squeeze the living daylights out of it until everything came out. The only thing I got in the end was just blood.

The growth will still be there. At least for now. I got the infection mess out, and decided to stop there for tonight. It took me about 1.5 hours to "go through" the entire mass and check it all for infection. Harry actually laid on his back most of the time, only trying to flip over now and then when I hit a fleshy part. After I wasn't seeing anymore white mess, I pressed gauze up against it for a while to stop the bleeding, used a tiny syringe and needle to drip Duramycin directly onto all open areas, spread Neosporin across the entire thing and overlapped it onto his leg scales, and covered it with fresh gauze and bandaging.

I used the very last of the bandaging for that roll (previously used on a cat) so I then used the cardboard tube to go ahead and try to separate his toes and force the folded one back out. Then I bandaged the whole thing in place so the tube would stay in place "pushing" the toe outwards away from the heel of his foot.

Then, keeping him upside down, I rinsed the blood and iodine solution off of the rest of his body (he would have stayed clean if he had stayed still). Right now he's sitting in my lap wrapped in a towel. The bad foot (and the tube it's bandaged to) are propped out to the side hanging off of my leg. The good foot is underneath him. He keeps drifting off to sleep, but with the lights on here, and my typing, he won't fully close his eyes.


I'm sure he'll be okay after tonight. And I'll work on getting rid of the remainder of the growth later. Seeing dark red fleshy areas when I was cutting leads me to believe it will have to be done carefully, and possibly over time - giving his body a chance to replace and repair as I cut it away.
 

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