How I'm Treating Bumblefoot without cutting/surgery

[Attila the Hen]

You know that is so interesting you say that. At my old house I had lot of bumblefoot occurances and I had a huge gravel driveway. Now at my new place this year I only had 1 case and they don't have access to a gravel driveway and I have 2x the birds and I had wondered if that was why.

My vet told me to keep them off the gravel. I suspected the blackberry bushes were the culprit because they often hang out there. But then read where people plant them for their birds. It will be very difficult to get them to stay off the gravel. It goes up to the door and that's where the snack come from. Also, their favorite foul weather shelters are off the gravel.

 

[Woobsie]

I definitely think gravel is what is doing it the more I think of it. I would have easily, 25% of my birds with it every year for 3 years at the old place, this year its 2% and the roost height and material are the same. The cleanliness of the coop is the same. But the big thing is they are on grass not half gravel half grass. Can you build a large enclosure for them on grass?
Its hard because I was totally free range also and now I didnt want to risk it because I am on a busy road so had to make a large fenced in area. They seem just as happy!

 

[Attila the Hen]

The area is already fenced off and there is plenty of room. It's just that I like to put their scratch on the garage floor instead of the wet earth. That way I can sweep it up and throw it away if I want. Also, I don't have any grass at all. I live in a forest. It can get a little muddy. I'll work it out because it is important--plus the turkey tom keeps trying to attack my husband. He's had enough (my husband) probably the turkey too.

 

[lovemy6hens]

Our vet said walking on concrete can encourage bumblefoot too. If it's wet outside and they're scratching at the scratch in the garage, that's a good opportunity for bumblefoot.
We had to temporarily cover all the concrete with outdoor carpet and used children's play mats where ever we could. We also padded their roost.

 

[etammy]

Jumping off a high roost can cause bumble foot too. Look for areas where they could injure their foot like a screw head, nail sticking up, rough wood.
I had good luck soaking the affected foot in warm water and Epsom salt for a few days and removing the dark scab. You can then massage the foot and try to push out any debris that may be in there, hence the bumble of bumble foot. Wrap the wound for a few days.

 

[Attila the Hen]

Our vet said walking on concrete can encourage bumblefoot too. If it's wet outside and they're scratching at the scratch in the garage, that's a good opportunity for bumblefoot.
We had to temporarily cover all the concrete with outdoor carpet and used children's play mats where ever we could. We also padded their roost.

You can't win. I did move all food to the other side of the fence. It's dirt and leaves so they should be okay. Some still getting out of the fence but when they find there aren't many treats they should stop. The turkey tom misses me and follows me from one end of the yard to the other. I miss them too!

 

[Attila the Hen]

Jumping off a high roost can cause bumble foot too. Look for areas where they could injure their foot like a screw head, nail sticking up, rough wood.
I had good luck soaking the affected foot in warm water and Epsom salt for a few days and removing the dark scab. You can then massage the foot and try to push out any debris that may be in there, hence the bumble of bumble foot. Wrap the wound for a few days.

Thanks for the input. I will do that with this hen who I just noticed has bumble foot. It is not advanced at all so hopefully I'll be able to get it taken care of with wrapping. The original hen that prompted this thread had a very nasty case. It really looked ugly and white with no black bumble exit. I doubt she would have made it if the extreme measure outlined earlier hadn't been taken. Don't want to go through that again.

 

[TherryChicken]

My hen had severe bumble foot on both feet. These pictures were about a week or 2 after surgery to remove the puss the first time..

Been a few months in recovery. Luckily puss has not come back yet. Her foot Still needs wrapping and needs lots of padding. Due to the bad bumble foot, her feet are flat. Slowly getting padding back though

 

[Heidi65]

My hen has bumble foot and I've been treating her with Epson soaks, about 5 minutes if I'm lucky, and then putting Prid drawing salve on on gauze it then wrapping her foot. I've only soaked her foot twice and changed her bandage twice in the three days since this forum diagnosed it for us. We just got done doing it and the black spot is very visible.

Which are the most important steps in all of this, the soaking, the drawing salve or the wrap? When we brought her into the house, the bottom of the wrap was gone but her foot was still pretty clean.

She has no problem walking on it, still uses it for scratching and such. We have no gravel, we mainly use fine shavings in the coop but hubby puts down alfalfa on the poop boards, could that be our culprit? The roosts have poop boards under them wide enough that they can walk on and each one has a cut down old wooden saw horse for them to get up and down on if they wish. The highest one is even with the bottom of standard window height.

Thank you for all of your wisdom and guidance.

Heidi

 

[lovemy6hens]

Removing the potential source of injury would be the most important, followed by padding to alleviate pressure while healing. The wrap keeps dirt out and secures whatever padding is under it, so that's helpful twice over. Getting rid of the infection is essential though!

I would hesitate to use a drawing salve, although the sulphur in Prid may be helpful (just not sure about the other ingredients in it). The epsom salt should work to draw out the nasty stuff. We didn't soak their feet until a scab had formed again.

Our vet gave us a sulfadiazine cream which worked well (may have been silver sulfadiazene but I can't remember). I don't know about egg withdrawal times for that.

I'm looking forward to reading other opinions!