When My husband and I first got our chickens almost three years ago I immediately noticed one hen had a growth between her toes. It was very hard but didn't seem to affect her. She walked normally and the growth never grew any larger. It never grew any larger....until about three weeks ago. I was feeding our girls and noticed the growth was a little larger and over the last three weeks has basically grown into a massive lump between her toes!!! I was very concerned because a week before noticing the growth of the lump we sudden lost a hen (not sure why she died). After days and days of researching on the forums I finally decided I needed to catch my hen and check out her foot for bumblefoot. And, it turns out, that is what she had! (Or so I think). She had the tell tale scab on the bottom of her foot. I literally was up all night because I was scared to perform this surgery. Lots of people say it is easy but our chickens are our babies and we knew this was not going to be easy on us emotionally. We finally decided we needed to help our hen and we gathered the materials to perform the diy bumblefoot surgery at home and my husband and I set to work. We started by cutting the top of her foot bc it was so infected we heard that might be easier. It wasn't! The growth was so solid we finally went back to the bottom and got so lucky. We were able to easily pull the growth out in one solid piece. So
[/IMG]After only 20 minutes of calming down, soaking, restraining and performing the surgery we were able to remove a HUGE nasty blob from her foot. There were some shaky hands and my husband almost passed out but we stayed strong and finally made it through. Nearly half the size of a quarter and solid as a rock, the infection came out a lot easier than we thought. Now she is resting peacefully on her perch. I want to thank all the people who posted about their own diy bumblefoot surgeries. It gave me the courage to help my own chicken and hopefully she will recover quickly without issue. Thank you, thank you, thank you to EVERYONE on backyard chickens forums who posts about their experience and helped us feel confident to help our baby!!....and thank you to my husband who hates needles and blood and the sort but sucked it up to help our precious pet!!
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