Bumblefoot

[Southern28Chick]

What do I do? It's pretty small, about the size of a pea. It's a hard brown scab.

I read somewhere to soak, pick off scab then lance. Then I hear not to EVER lance.

 

[Southern28Chick]

Quote:

 

[greyfields]

If it's truly a bumble then you need to give the bird 1 cc of penecillin in the thigh until it's gone away. You'll want to separate it from the other birds so it doesn't get harassed and can get to food and water.

 

[Southern28Chick]

Do I have to soak and take the scab off and let pus drain?

It's a pea sized scab and she has a hard time putting weight on the foot. Her foot is not swollen so I think I caught it early.

 

[greyfields]

I've never lanced one. It's an infection within the tissues, so removing the puss won't solve the problem like with a cyst/abscess.

Try utilizing the search feature on this page and you'll find lots of threads on bumblefoot. The only treatment I have ever used is penecillin. And it generally takes a good week to go away.

 

[Southern28Chick]

Ok going by what I've read it was my understanding to clean her foot and pull off the scab. I did that. The scab came off clean on one side but left a hole on the other side. I cleaned up the wound, applied antibiotic cream and wrapped the foot with a clean bandage. She's out in the shed now in a cat carrier.

She had another one on the other foot but since the first one didn't have pus then I figured she just had bad scabs from something and let the other one be after trying to pull some of that scab off and couldn't get it. Wrapped that foot too.

So I'll check her tomorrow and she how it's going and change the bandages.

If there was no pus does that mean it wasn't bumble?

 

[DuckLady]

It is easy to confuse a callus with bumble. With bumble, the foot will feel hot.

I just brought in my chronically bumbly crippled duck, Miss Matilda. I noticed a scab on her ankle and it was bleeding. I was looking at it and checking to see if it was a bad cut and a huge plug of "bumble cheese" came out cleanly. It was about an inch long, 3/4 of an inch wide and about 1/4 inch thick. It left a huge hole in her. I cleaned out the hole with chlorhexadine solution. Then I packed the hole with neosporin and bandaged. She is in the bathroom making me sneeze.

I will recheck tomorrow and clean it out again. It is important the the hole heals from the inside as just scabbing over doesn't mean the infection is gone.
In order to accomplish this, Miss Matilda will have her scab and hole reopened and cleaned out and I will tweeze out any bumble cheese I see. I will pack with neosporin and bandage and sneeze until I see it is healing well from the inside. She will recieve tomatoes and watermelon to speed her healing.

Then out she goes back to her pen.

Claritin and Chlor-Trimeton are my friends. And I am very wiggy right now.

 

[speckledhen]

For the record, penicillin, Doxycycline, Cephalexin, none of them have ever cured bumblefoot on my birds. I refuse to give antibiotics anymore for it because sometimes they just dont work. My Violet kept bumblefoot for about a year, and went through the above antibiotics and others as well. Only surgery on her foot by us and removing the pus plug and stuffing it with antibiotics and sometimes tea tree oil, etc did any good at all.

 

[greyfields]

I guess I get good results from penecillin-G and took the guidance from the Chicken Health Handbook for dealing with them.

 

[speckledhen]

I wish that had worked for me, greyfields. It just never did. I have to deal with this problem all the time here and just dont even bother with antibiotics anymore.