Bumblefoot turned into....?

[wynneg]

Have a hen that we treated a few weeks ago for bumblefoot, but we didn't catch that she had it until she was just laying around and having a really hard time walking, limping, etc. She was easy to treat, cleaned her foot with antiseptic, popped scab off, drained wound until only blood came out, used Bactroban for antibiotic cream, cleaned her up real good again, wrapped her foot with bandages so it would stay clean, not that it matters because she didnt walk on it anyway. Fast forward two weeks, scab is gone, wound healed nicely, BUT....she still wont walk on that foot and one of her 'toes' is still swollen and she hobbles around when she does move. I'll attach a picture so you can see. Suggestions? I dont want her to suffer, but it seems she is, its painful for sure.
Swollen foot.

Normal foot

 

[Wyorp Rock]

It looks like it may be infected.
Is the nail split?
What does the bottom part of that swollen digit look like?

Soak her foot in warm epsom salts bath, this may help reduce the swelling. It may have infection set in, if you have a vet that can prescribe some antibiotics that would be best.

 

[Heidi65]

How much did you get out when you treated the bumblefoot? I know I just treated one of our girls, Forest, we unfortunately had to wait a week to treat her because we were getting a ton of rain every day and couldn't keep it dry. Even though we thought we caught it right at the start I still pulled this out of her foot



We had one girl that her foot was very swollen and we had no idea what it was. We asked on here and was told to get her to a vet, here is what her foot looked like and she was still walking




When we left the vet she had pulled this amount of stuff out

I'm a newbie at chickens so I'm just trying to help. We have only had them 1.5 yrs and love them to death. We have the vet bills to prove it

I just posted the pictures to help because I had never seen anything like this when we started. Hope I didn't offend

Heidi

 

[wynneg]

Don't apologize! I've had chickens for awhile now, but this is the first time I've had to deal with bumblefoot so your pictures are helpful. I didn't pull much out actually because the scab popped off and I couldn't find much after the initial 'plug'. The scab is healed over now, so I'm assuming I missed some infection and now it's 'sealed in'. My husband wouldn't agree on taking her to a vet, I feel bad for her and I don't want her to suffer so her outcome may be bleak if she doesn't get better. She is actually walking on it a little more now, but still has a little limp so I'm hoping her body is fighting the infection off. I love my chicken babies so I'm hoping she pulls through!

 

[wynneg]

It looks like it may be infected.
Is the nail split?
What does the bottom part of that swollen digit look like?

Soak her foot in warm epsom salts bath, this may help reduce the swelling. It may have infection set in, if you have a vet that can prescribe some antibiotics that would be best.

The nail is not split, but the 'toe' is so swollen that the toenail almost looks like it won't stay on much longer. It's not bloody or anything though. This is what the bottom of her foot looked like 2 days after I pulled the scab and what I thought was all of the infection out. I cleaned and re-bandaged it here. I don't have a current picture of the bottom, but the wound is not there anymore.

 

[Heidi65]

My uneducated guess is you may have not gotten all of the bumble out. When I took the bumble out of Forest's foot even though she was bandaged she was walking fine afterwards. She is such a good girl, she never flinched when I dug all the crap out of her foot which was poking up to the top between her toes.

What are you using when you bandage her foot? There was a deep hole left but I had stuff left from when we took Meg in to have hers removed so we used Silver Sulfadiazine

 

[Heidi65]

Also, when I cut and got the large piece out of her foot I felt around and then I felt the little piece still in there, so I still had to cut down more to get it. Tractor Supple sells scalpels so that is what I use to cut into her foot, they are VERY sharp

 

[wynneg]

My uneducated guess is you may have not gotten all of the bumble out.  When I took the bumble out of Forest's foot even though she was bandaged she was walking fine afterwards.  She is such a good girl, she never flinched when I dug all the crap out of her foot which was poking up to the top between her toes.

What are you using when you bandage her foot? There was a deep hole left but I had stuff left from when we took Meg in to have hers removed so we used Silver Sulfadiazine

I'm thinking the same thing. I must not have gotten it all. So now that the scab is healed up over the infection, do I cut into her foot to get the infection i missed out? My poor chicken. I used some fabric bandages and then used electrical tape to keep it in place. Ghetto, but it kept it clean and dry until it healed. Used bactroban as antibiotic ointment, I know it only works on some bacterias, but I was keeping my fingers crossed that it would work. Dangit!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Give her a couple of more days with soaking the foot in epsom salts to see if that helps any.

A lot of times it just won't heal until you get all the infection out. You can try antibiotics like Procaine penicillin G, this can sometimes help. Not sure if you will need to try to open the foot back up or not.

POST #2 gives instructions on Pen G https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1121290/swollen-foot-spreading#post_17284805