Duck with Bumblefoot. Please advise on surgery!

[szichigo]

Okay, I need some advice here.
I have a duck with what I think is bumblefoot on both feet. Great big ones. I used this site for instructions on surgery: http://www.fresh-eggs-daily.com/2012/03/bumblefoot.html and here's what I did. We only did one foot so far.
Cleaned and soaked the foot in epsom salts to soften.
Removed the black scab on top with little trouble.
Then we were faced with this big bloody oozy area. (picture) We cut into it but found nothing that looked like a "kernel" or pus. Just more blood. Didn't look all small and neat like the site's pictures.
We put generic neosporin (not the pain kind) on a gauze pad and banagaged it up.
Duck is in a dark box on some bedding now. Seems okay and relaxed.
Now...questions. Did we do it wrong and that's why we didn't locate the infection/pus/kernel? If there is no infection/pus/kernel how do we go about healing this? She can't really walk around, they're so big. What should we do differently on the other foot?
Thanks!

 

[AgnesDidIt]

I tried to share a link w a video of bumble foot surgery, but it says I can't post outside links. I assume you are anxious for help so if you Google the Chicken Chick, and then search for Bumble Foot once you get to her site, She videoed her doing the surgery with a lot of detail. Good luck.

 

[Judy]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/236649/bumblefoot-surgery-with-pics-and-how-to/0_20

 

[szichigo]

I watched the video there with my husband, and checked out that post.. What my duck has doesn't quite look the same. It seems harder. There was a much much larger black scab on the top, and after we removed it it looked entirely different from what they had in the video. There was no white stuff at all. It looked just red and bloody.
Do you think I should go back in there, or keep it bandaged (cleaning and changing it) and see if it heals on its own? And then there's the other foot to consider.

 

[CMV]

A good rule of thumb is to not do anything overly invasive to a bumblefoot unless the bird is hobbling. Is your duck limping? Ducks often have callouses on their feet that never need to be addressed. I have a handful of older ducks who all have varying degrees of black bumbles on their feet. I can occasionally get one to soak off if given enough time and scrubbing with a soft brush, but the bird often limps after I do that, so I have just learned to leave them be. I did get invasive with one bird, and had much the same result as you. Lots of blood, no real pus or gross center, just a black callous and some significant swelling. I dug practically through the poor bird's foot and never found anything. She recovered quite nicely, and the swelling resolved, but I felt that I had put her through something entirely unnecessary in my zeal to cure her of a problem I thought she had, but she didn't show any real distress over.

 

[szichigo]

Well, the site I went to said that if it's very hard that it may not be infected at all. In that case I'm not real sure how to make it smaller. These are very large and are definitely impairing her mobility. She can walk, but she limps badly, and she had started to just sit in a corner all day except to eat.

 

[CMV]

Have you looked at this thread? I know it is very long, but it has some good info in it:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/303829/vet-suggestion-for-non-invasive-bumblefoot-cure
This may be helpful to you.