Two hours ago I found one of my chickens hopping on one leg. When I examined her, she had a horrible case of bumblefoot - really swollen and puffy, with it extending up her ankle too. I phoned my friend who is the local vet for some supplies and after reading through the surgery threads on here, had a go at removing it and sorting it out myself. Here's what I did:
1. Soaked foot in hot water for ten minutes and scrubbed dirt off
2. Cut off scab and squeezed and tweezed out as much gunk as I could
3. Soaked again in hot iodine solution for 5 minutes
4. Dried off and sprayed with terramycin antibiotic spray
5. 0.1ml injection of Pen & Strep antibiotic (on vet's instruction)
Then I gave her two drops of Ivermectin on the back of her neck, and louse powdered her too, cause I saw a few little beasties
She looks okay now and she's eating some cat food mashed up with layers feed, but I'm worried I didn't do it right. Once I'd finished squeezing and pulling gunk out, there was blood filling up the hole so much that I couldn't really tell if I'd got all the muck out. I didn't want to squeeze too hard cause she was squeaking and struggling and I was worried I was appling too much pressure and I might do her some damage. But there didn't seem to be much gunk in there considering how swollen her foot was. And when I was finished, there wasn't a big hole in her foot or anything...
So, how do I know if I've got it all out? And if I haven't, will I have to do the surgery again? My vet told me to give her the antibiotic injection every day for five days, so hopefully that will help clear up any bits that I didn't manage to get out, but I'm still really worried I might have botched it and given her a lot of pain for nothing...
1. Soaked foot in hot water for ten minutes and scrubbed dirt off
2. Cut off scab and squeezed and tweezed out as much gunk as I could
3. Soaked again in hot iodine solution for 5 minutes
4. Dried off and sprayed with terramycin antibiotic spray
5. 0.1ml injection of Pen & Strep antibiotic (on vet's instruction)
Then I gave her two drops of Ivermectin on the back of her neck, and louse powdered her too, cause I saw a few little beasties
She looks okay now and she's eating some cat food mashed up with layers feed, but I'm worried I didn't do it right. Once I'd finished squeezing and pulling gunk out, there was blood filling up the hole so much that I couldn't really tell if I'd got all the muck out. I didn't want to squeeze too hard cause she was squeaking and struggling and I was worried I was appling too much pressure and I might do her some damage. But there didn't seem to be much gunk in there considering how swollen her foot was. And when I was finished, there wasn't a big hole in her foot or anything...
So, how do I know if I've got it all out? And if I haven't, will I have to do the surgery again? My vet told me to give her the antibiotic injection every day for five days, so hopefully that will help clear up any bits that I didn't manage to get out, but I'm still really worried I might have botched it and given her a lot of pain for nothing...