Bumblefoot surgery - with pics and "how to"

[ChickLover98]

I have to do surgery today...

I will follow this thread when doing it.

 

[Marct611]

Thanks you all for the awesome posts. My wife and I found this thread last night and did the surgery just after we read it. It was very simple to do following the instructions on page 1. We could not believe how big the chunk of junk was that we got out of her pad.

 

[BlazeJester]

I am glad to have found this, but very, very sad that I didn't find it last year when I first noticed the swelling. I didn't think to look at the undersides of their feet. My 3 BR hens have each had at least one of these on each foot for probably over a year. This likely has to do with their coop not being moved around frequently enough before they moved to SC with me - that, or perhaps a change in their environment (a more rural one here), since I noticed it about a month after their move around last October.

Each hen has a notable swollen lump between the toes, with one hen having two on one foot and one on the other. Fortunately the other two have one foot without this infection. You can see on the top of their feet a bluish tint to most of these lumps, which has me wondering whether the black part will go all the way through?

Should we operate one lump at a time and wait for them to heal before attacking the next? I'm afraid the double-lumped foot won't have any regular tissue left in the main part of the pad. Also wondering benefit vs harm of opening up both the pad and top of the foot to get at a pretty well-formed lump.

Yay for learning so we can get this under control before it's too late, but man... I hope I don't have to do this with my other trio from that original flock as well

I guess it would be of note that they don't appear to be in any pain whatsoever and are otherwise happy and healthy and laying like there's no tomorrow. They're 2.5yrs old now and acting like they'll live to 50.

 

[corancher]

I had to do my first bumble foot surgery today on my favorite Lavender Orpington hen "Velvet". Thanks so much for the pictures and the details on how to do this surgery. All went well and I think Velvet will recover nicely. I at first pulled some gunk out and though of that wasn't to bad then soaked her foot a little. I thought I better take another look because I didn't get anything like was explained about a core. I saw a little white stuff off the the side and upon digging it out I had a big old hard chunk that was bigger than a pencil eraser. I think that was the core.

What a little champ she was. She just layed on her side and let me dig around in her foot, then soak it, and dig somemore and puck that big old piece of nasty stuff out. I washed her up, put on some neosporin, and a bandage and she is already walking better than she has in days.

Once again thanks for the information.

 

[Mavrik]

I have done three bumblefoot surgeries recently, two of them today. I have yet to find a plug, why would this be? The very last one just had a big hole under the scab.

 

[featherz]

Quote:
I had the same problem. In my case, not every foot with a scab is infected and has pus, and believe me, I did REALLY look, multiple cuts, top of foot etc. I only do surgeries now on obviously 'infected' looking feet - unusual swelling/feeling hot/redness/pain. I do soaks on anything less or just leave and watch. So far so good. If you open the scab and get anything out like pus/cheese/etc, then I'd definitely go looking for the 'core' just in case it's deeper or on the top of the foot.

 

[Telamon]

This Needs To Be A Sticky.

 

[corancher]

As I said in my post, I got the cheesy stuff out then didn't see anything else. I soaked the foot and took another look and just saw a small white area which was a little bigger than a straight pen head and it was off to the side of the hole. When I pulled at it the whole core came out and it was larger than a pencil eraser. I was super surprised as it didn't look like there was anything left to remove. My little hen is doing great. The swelling is down, however I have not removed the bandage yet. I am planning on doing that tonight.

 

[biddybird]

Glad I found this thread! Looks like I will be doing bumble-surgery this evening!!

 

[Evelle]

this is so awsome thank you so much for sharing