bumblefoot questions

[lavandula girl]

Okay... I did a couple searches when my EE mutt got bumblefoot, and got some terrific help from the threads I found. I did the minor surgery/foot cutting, and she seems to be doing pretty well. I just have a couple questions that I didn't see answers to in those other threads I read...

1) If the hardened plug and the knob of pus came out together, and I can't feel any other hardened pieces in the swollen area of her foot, is there a good chance I got the whole thing?

2) Once a hen has had bumblefoot once, is she more susceptible to repeat infections?


3) She had an abcessed area on the top of the skin between her toes, which I lanced when I did the other cutting. Should I have dug in that area for some of the hardened pus substance, or should I rely for now on the "feel" test... can't feel the corms, don't cut for the corms?


No hurry, or rush... Max is doing just fine. Rather than isolate her, I lined the whole run with sod, to make it soft for her feet. She became too agitated when I crated her. The feet are cleaned, swiped with iodine, and vet wrapped. She's eating, drinking, and doing chicken-y things. The four other girls are apparently very jealous of her pretty pink socks.

I'm just wondering, for my own info more than any impending doom.

 

[DuckLady]

1) Yes, it is likely you got it all, but keep an eye on it. Sometimes a miniscule amount of the infected material will cause a recurrence.

2) It depends on the hen. We have a duck who is suseptible to bumblefoot, though she has been fine for months. OTOH, we have had a rooster who kept getting it. It just depends on the bird and the area where theya re living. We found that the rooster was perching on a rough area of the roost and we smoothed it and it helped a lot.

 

[lavandula girl]

Thanks a lot! She seems to be doing well... no limping, even after all the cutting I had to do. The past couple days, I've been going out to the coop extra early, so I can lift her down off the perch, theoretically "saving" her feet from the jump down. As soon as she's out in the run, she jumps UP on the outdoor perch. I figure, her feet must be feeling pretty a-ok!