Cayuga Duck With Bumblefoot

[proudduckowner22]

Hey y’all! I just recently purchased my first Cayuga ducks from someone who is downsizing their flock for winter, I bought 2 hens and a drake they are about 2 years old. When I purchased them, the person said that one of the hens had a bit of a limp, and she still has the limp right now, I went to go and investigate her feet today and found a not so good looking case of bumble foot. I have had one case of bumble foot before this in one of my khaki Campbell ducks and I was able to treat her in about a week with soaking her in Epsom salt water daily and spraying her feet with brown iodine and that was it. But her case was a lot different then this one it seems more severe, what should I do to treat this poor girl? Not sure if what I did before will cut it for this one! Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[CoriM]

Is the whole heel pad swollen compared to her other foot? If so, you're probably going to have to soak in epsom salts, pull the scab, clean it out and pack with triple antibiotic ointment and bandage it, keeping it dry until it scabs over. You could also try scrubbing it with toothbrush dipped in iodine a couple times a day, putting some ointment on it, and just keeping her out of the water for ten minutes while it dries, to start, but if she's limping already I'm guessing the infection is beyond what you can do with just treating it topically.

 

[proudduckowner22]

Is the whole heel pad swollen compared to her other foot? If so, you're probably going to have to soak in epsom salts, pull the scab, clean it out and pack with triple antibiotic ointment and bandage it, keeping it dry until it scabs over. You could also try scrubbing it with toothbrush dipped in iodine a couple times a day, putting some ointment on it, and just keeping her out of the water for ten minutes while it dries, to start, but if she's limping already I'm guessing the infection is beyond what you can do with just treating it topically.

She is limping and has been ever since I got her which was a few days ago. Is there a good chance she would need some kind of surgery or operation done on her foot? I don’t like seeing my birds in pain so if that’s what she needs I will see.

 

[CoriM]

People call it surgery, but it's really not that intimidating. Basically, you soak her foot in lukewarm epsom water for about 10 minutes, then gently try to remove the scab. There are at least a hundred threads on BYC about bumblefoot, so you can look some of them over. Some people are able to see a kernel of infection and pull that out of the foot, other times it's just some yellow junk and you can try to just squeeze some of that out. Then pack the hole with triple antibiotic ointment (the kind without pain reliever) and put a little gauze over it and wrap the foot in vet wrap to hold it in place. Keep her foot dry for a couple of days until a new scab has formed, then you can remove the bandage and see how it's going. You basically want to see reduction in swelling in your duck's case. If you could limit her walking much for a few days as well, that would probably be helpful too.