Chronic foot infection- trying to avoid second surgery

[alinas2010]

Sorry- I meant the other side of the same foot. But, I'm impressed with the sugardine healing the abscess. Thank you so much- I will keep you posted, I feel like the stress is going through the anesthesia and hopefully the debridement isn't too much.

Good luck with surgery today

 

[muscovylove]

Hey there, so her surgery went fine but the vet believes the infection is in the joint. She had a very frank discussion with me- she believes the infection will come back. 2 major restrictions are cost for a bacterial test to know exactly what bacteria is in her foot- it's $600!!! The other is restrictions on antibiotics since she is a chicken vs a pigeon or parrot. I did connect with someone who has had a lot of experience with bumblefoot and they recommended adding Baytril to the clavamox routine she'll be on, hitting gram positive and gram negative bacteria. I was able to order some and it will arrive Monday.
I'm totally maxed out money wise with her unfortunately. There is another $1000 procedure where they inject antibiotics directly into her joint, but there is no guarantee with that either.
Does anyone have experience with amputation of a foot? I know that sounds horrible. The vet clinic will absolutely not entertain it. They believe it cuts the quality of life down way too much and they don't do well with prosthetics.
Does anyone have experience using essential oils/herbs/vitamins/nutrition etc to help support healing from infections? I'm going to throw all the spaghetti on the wall for her as long as I can. She's a sweet girl and a real trooper.
Thank you everyone for reading updates and replying- I really really appreciate it.

 

[alinas2010]

Ugh I’m sorry to hear the news, but I am glad surgery went well.

Laboratory testing is so ridiculously inflated. Do you have a college near by with a medical laboratory science program or a veterinary program? Or even a just microbiology one? They would likely be willing to work up bacterial sample for free or low cost for you to see what was growing. The process would likely be slower than any molecular testing the veterinary office could do, and they may be more limited in identifying the bacteria if it is something rare - which I would not think it is. But it is an option if you have access to a sample from her surgery and can call around you to a college. They can often do MICs (antibiotic susceptibility testing), also. Explain that this is your dearly beloved pet chicken and not many vets treat chickens, so you’re stuck trying to work this out yourself. With school starting a lot of those programs would love the experience for their students.

I know that is probably one of the least of your worries. But as far as the others…Chickens can and do live with only one leg. We’ve seen it here a few times where a foot auto amputates due to infection or a limb that has been restricted blood flow. It’s actually a neat, self-limiting process. Let me see if I can find an old post.

I think I have seen where essential oils of sorts do help with wound healing. Someone recommended them to another user once and an educator was going to get after that person, but then looked into it and found that there are actually studies on them supporting that they fight infection and promote healing. However I would need to look further into that myself, I do not know a lot about it. I think @coach723 might have more experience with natural things.

 

[alinas2010]

Here is a thread where the rooster lost his foot

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/rooster-very-sick-bumblefoot-complications.1642776/