Holding a tom to work on his feet?

[luckyclucker]

Hi-- I hope this thread isn't out there yet. I need to work on some hard, corn-like growths on my midget white tom's feet. He has been limping a little more and more. Not infected bumblefoot (I've looked at the poultry podiatry site and spoken to the woman who runs it) but a non-infected bumblefoot. Anyhow, I'm unsure how to hold him. I've heard you can hurt their lungs. He's too heavy to stand on his other foot while we work on him.

Has anyone else had a tom with hard growths on his foot pads? He's a pet, so he is pretty old. I'm wondering if he has something like warts or corns??

Any help on holding and on what this might be is helpful. My vet is coming out on Friday to look at him, but she just does poultry to help out. She can provide antibiotics or pain pills, but knows about as much about turkeys as the average non-avian vet.

 

[ivan3]

On picking him up: One person stands behind turkey, bends over turkey, wraps arms around turkey (wings folded against body). Person, with arms locked around turkey, picks turkey up (turkey's back against lifter's chest). Shouldn't have to apply much pressure at all to hold turk against chest - just enought to keep winds folded. Second person works on one foot at a time - don't hold leg so tightly that turk can't `adjust' - don't want to cause sprain/strain.

Turk will usually calm down when it realizes it's going nowhere, fast. If growths can be pared without exposing underlying tissue? OK. However, it is worse to allow some `bug' purchase by cutting too deeply. We dose chooks/turks with baby aspirin (or the plain 81mg aspirin) rec: dose is 2.5mg/lb tid. However, we crush an 81mg up and have given up to 10mg/lb to good effect (start low). We daub grapes into powdered aspirin and then feed the chook/turk the grapes).

Soft bedding (wood chips/sand) could help a bit.

Try doing a search on articular gout and see if any shots of the poultry with this look anything like the growths (might influence feed/treatment). Just don't do more than light abrading/trimming if there is currently no infection.