Bumblefoot surgery - with pics and "how to"

[seminolewind]

JBV, sounds like you did a good job. I have gone thru the top a few times because it was a better access point at the time. Maybe that's why mine is so hard to get out, it could be in pieces.

 

[welasharon]

Only once have I had a good kernel. Mostly its bits and pieces.

 

[wildsam]

Hello there. First time on this thread and read my way through most of the posts (pooh, my eyes!!!)

Anyways, we have a duck with bumblefoot. Tried to treat her with regular Vetericyn, didn't work. Go all the white cheesy stuff out, with some blood but didn't find a kernel. We treated it several days with Neosporin, BlueKote and Vetericyn and it seemed good, so we let her outside again.

Fast forward one month to today. Saw her limping around again and picked her up. The bumblefoot is still there (or back, depending on how you look at it) and bad again. We just tried to work about an hour to cut it out after soaking it for 10 min in warm Epsom water. Lots of blood (almost afraid that she will bleed out?!), got some fatty looking stuff and a string, but didn't seem to be a kernel. My SO wants to cut in a straight line away from the center out and then try to cut into the foot and see if we can find a kernel.

We are both kinda afraid that we cut into good flesh/food and do more harm than good. Since we didn't get the fatty looking stuff/bubble (is that the kernel?) I'm not really sure what to look for. A bit to the right is a small white stringy thing (for lack of a better description), kind of like the cheesy puss, that I do not think is the kernel tho. Since we both were afraid to mess with it any more we cleaned it off with Vetericyn, put BlueKote and Neosporin on and wrapped it up. She is kept in a tub inside, darkened til we can get to the bottom of this dang thing.

We do not have an avian vet anywhere close that we know of (called around in a 120 mile radius) and I'm starting to get a bit desperate. Can anyone help figure out if that bubble needs to go or should I cut more to the side where the stringy thing is? Will try to take a decent clear pic tomorrow and post it here. So far I haven't found a good CLEAR pic of bumblefoot surgery anywhere, especially not on a duck...ugh... I wish we would have someone close by that would know and could help out...

 

[casportpony]

Can you post some pictures?

-Kathy

 

[welasharon]

All but one of mine have just been sringy gooey stuff. I think that's when it the hardest to do. I too am unsure if I am pulling out good stuff or bad. Those are the ones I am having to go back into again.

 

[Eggcessive]

I have gotten a hardened pus plug and soft pus out of the same foot doing surgery, and just a plug or just pus. Sometimes there is a puffy lesion on top of the foot between the toes, as well as the black spot on the bottom. I usually cut into a cone shape away from the black spot, and go around it with a sharp scalpel. It takes a lot of squeezing in all directions, and then I dig around, and squeeze some more. That way I don't have to go back in later. There is quite a bit of bleeding, but pressure for a few minutes will help stop it.

 

[wildsam]

Back again. Here are the promised pics. Sorry, forgot to take some last night before we put the BlueKote on, so it is a bit difficult to see IMO.


This one has one of them stringy things. First thought it's a bit of feather that got into the wound, but wasn't.


Here you can see where he was trying to cut straight down away from the wound towards the heel of her foot. Don't agree with that. What do you think?



This all looks so bad to me, and I really wanna get this taken care of once and for all. But I don't wanna do any more damage than absolutely necessary. So PLEASE, if anyone could give me some advice on how to go about this, it would be greatly appreciated!

 

[wildsam]

Hmmm. Now that I posted pics and am waiting for an answer impatiently everybody seems to have gone for a long Labor Day weekend... Just my luck.

 

[seminolewind]

No, I'm still here!

I don't know. I have one now that is swollen and painful and the roo is wasted away from Marek's and he just won't up and die! So he's on antibiotics and I've also dug the hole.

The string thing I just don't know. You pull them out?

I had one who was chronic, and I probably removed 4 in her life from the same foot. I think some may be chronic. I don't think you'll find a kernel every time. Pus and cheesy stuff probably hasn't formed a kernel yet. You may have a chronic one. Mine did finally stop getting them. I have 2 right now that have a black scab, but no swelling or limping, so it can stay. These two hens gasp when they rest due to something else, but it would make it hard to do the surgery.

If you've gotten cheesy stuff pus and stuff out, and it looks improved, I would leave it. I can't see cutting around looking for something that may not be there.

 

[wildsam]

We got some puss and cheesy stuff out the first time she had bumblefoot. I thought I got it all and it healed. She was walking fine although there was still some swelling a few days after that one.

This is her second one and she was barely able to walk when I grabbed her this time. Opened it up by a black scab on top but since then we find nothing but this bubbly fatty stringy stuff. We don't know how deep and it won't come out despite cutting quite a bit too. (Did it again tonight but nothing but that stuff you can't grab and get out).

So what do you do besides BlueKote, Vetericyn and a good dose of Neosporin? Should we try to put some iodine tincture on that fatty stringy stuff when we change the dressing next time? No clue what else to do at this point. It is really big and swollen (as can be seen in the pictures) and I don't wanna just dig around and in it to come up with nothing and just distressing my bird...