Can I cut foot feathers before Bumblefoot surgery or will they bleed?

[sally4500]

I am doing my first Bumblefoot surgery on my Light Brahma who has lots of foot feathers. They will be in the way when I need to wrap them after the surgery. Will her foot feathers bleed if I cut them prior to wrapping with vet wrap? If so, any suggestions? This is my first time doing this, so want to do it right and be able to keep her comfortable while she heals.

What do you sterilize the tweezers with? Or should I boil them?

I have read many posts on BYC on this subject, but have not seen anything on sterilizing the equiptment.

Thanks!!

 

[TwoCrows]

Grown feathers will not bleed. Only the newly growning feathers, blood feathers, will bleed. So yes, you can cut those feathers with no problem.

I sterilize my equipment by first boiling everything for about 5 mins and then soaking everything in alcohol for another 5 mins. I don't wipe them off, but let the alcohol air off. I wrap them in a paper towel and either store them or carry them to my surgery area.

Good luck with the surgery!. Scary at first, but it is no big deal. Towel up the bird and lay them on your lap. Pull off the scab and dig, pick, pull and squeeze out all chunks, pus and gunk. It may take an hour to get it all out, as it is thick and gooey.

Squeeze a liberal amount of neosporin in the hole and firmly but gently wrap with vet wrap. Feel the toes about 5 mins after the wrapping to make sure the toes are warm. If they are cold, you have wrapped too tightly.

Check the wound tomorrow morning. If it looks blood red in color and you don't see any pus at the surface, apply more neosporin and rewrap. If you see more pus, you will need to go into the foot again.

Check the foot daily and keep the foot bandaged until the scab completely falls off.

Good luck!

 

[sally4500]

Thanks very much! You are a big help!