bumblefoot

TomandBarbara

Songster
10 Years
Aug 26, 2012
79
3
101
Greater London UK
Hello all. Our youngest Tilly had swelling in between her toes,bulbous about the size of a penny. We inspected her feet and lo and behold tell tale black pads in the centre of both her feet!
We are in the UK and although there is a vet nearby she can be very expensive so we did our research and after discussing things with dad (a champion bird breeder) we knew what to do.
We followed directions soaked her feet and cut around the pads.
We treated the swollen foot first.
When the pad was removed a small core came out and a lot of pus! We squeezed to make sure that there was no more core and cleaned her foot of blood and applied johnson's poultry antibacterial powder and dressed the foot with a vaseline/boric acid salve and wrapped the foot in vetrap.
We removed the pad on her other foot but there was no sign of a core or pus nevertheless we treated it the same with the powder and salve and dressed it.

That was yesterday. Today we soaked her feet in Epsom salt bath for 10mins, inspected again for any more core.still nothing so dusted and dressed with salve and clean vetrap.

Trouble is because we have never had to do this before we are still worried it's not been cleared.
Has anyone used the same process/powders and had succeed?
How often did you change dressings? Did it work? How long until the foot is healed?
We've had our girls for 3 years and have never had this before but we are learning all the time.just hope.weve done it right I feel such a helpless idiot! What else should we be doing?
 
Hello all. Our youngest Tilly had swelling in between her toes,bulbous about the size of a penny. We inspected her feet and lo and behold tell tale black pads in the centre of both her feet!
We are in the UK and although there is a vet nearby she can be very expensive so we did our research and after discussing things with dad (a champion bird breeder) we knew what to do.
We followed directions soaked her feet and cut around the pads.
We treated the swollen foot first.
When the pad was removed a small core came out and a lot of pus! We squeezed to make sure that there was no more core and cleaned her foot of blood and applied johnson's poultry antibacterial powder and dressed the foot with a vaseline/boric acid salve and wrapped the foot in vetrap.
We removed the pad on her other foot but there was no sign of a core or pus nevertheless we treated it the same with the powder and salve and dressed it.

That was yesterday. Today we soaked her feet in Epsom salt bath for 10mins, inspected again for any more core.still nothing so dusted and dressed with salve and clean vetrap.

Trouble is because we have never had to do this before we are still worried it's not been cleared.
Has anyone used the same process/powders and had succeed?
How often did you change dressings? Did it work? How long until the foot is healed?
We've had our girls for 3 years and have never had this before but we are learning all the time.just hope.weve done it right I feel such a helpless idiot! What else should we be doing?

The key is keeping the wound dry and clean. Just keep an eye on the dressing and change it if it's wet or badly soiled. Clean and repack the wound and wrap it up as necessary. It should completely heal in 5-7 days depending on the size of the wound.
Personally, I use duct tape instead of vet wrap. It keeps the dressing dry and clean, and birds cant pick it off. I remove it every two days and check the healing process.
 
Update
The swelling has gone but the pads are back! Do we have to go through the whole process again? Did we not cut enough away? I am worried about cutting too deeply and really hurting her.
 
Update
The swelling has gone but the pads are back! Do we have to go through the whole process again? Did we not cut enough away? I am worried about cutting too deeply and really hurting her.
Can you post a picture of what you mean by the pads? Chickens have a natural foot pad on "sole" of their foot that is supposed to be there. The bumble/infection part is when there is a hard core that is causing limping or lameness. Swelling will take a while to go down.
 
I spoke too soon and the swelling between her toes is back on one foot! We soaked her feet in Epsom salts bath and again cut the pad away and checked for a core...no sign of one however it did bleed more than the first time!
When we were sure there was no còre we put a corn pad over the foot and packed it with a suggested iodine/sugar paste and dressed her foot.
We just put a corn pad and paste over the other foot and dressed that as there was no swelling.

It was quite late when we did this so we were able to put her straight back in the coop to settle for the night.

How come there wasn't a core?
The other images we have seen show a large 'hole' in the foot after being cut but there wasn't on our girl!

People have been lovely and suggested a few medicines but as I'm in the UK these are not available,hence the iodine/sugar. Hubby and I are questioning if we have done everything correctly! What else can we do?
 

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