Leghorn with Bumblefoot

[Ebony Rose]

Warm water soak of the feet, epsom salt optional but beneficial. You can also massage her feet and legs, waddles & comb with a bit of 'safe to eat' cooking oil, I prefer sunflower oil as it absorbs into their skin quickly. For the one-minute longer that it takes to add that to 'spa day', it's worth it!

 

[silkie1472]

Upon further inspection, I have seen where several birds have early signs of bumblefoot. This week I’m planning on placing hay in the coop and run to make their foundation softer. Hopefully this will help clean their feet up as well and allow me to take care of each of them.

 

[silkie1472]

Here’s an update on the chickens:

It is day 3 with a run and coop full of hay. I know it’s early to assume future results, but one of my standard black Cochins, which had bumblefoot on both feet, has nearly cleared an infection on one foot. I’m hoping that in a week or two I can see the same improvement in other birds with little intervention.

 

[onvirginiasoil]

Hard to tell what caused it, easier to give you advice on a noninvasive solution: TricideNeo. What I have to say may save you an expensive veterinary visit.

I have a rooster whose left foot was so full of infection from bumblefoot and my failed efforts to treat it that I was scared it was going to become systemic and would kill him. The veterinarian amputated one toe and had to dig out diseased tissue at the base of the next toe. I followed the veterinarian's post-surgical protocol to a T. It is the same protocol most people are familiar with: Soak the foot in Epson salts or in dilute providone iodine; dry and apply Neosporin generously; apply a no-stick gauze pad; wrap with Vetwrap; administer an oral antibiotic (I used amoxycillin).

After seven weeks of this post-surgical routine, my rooster's foot still seemed raw as ground meat in the affected area. I bought TricideNeo. I soaked the foot for quite awhile, probably 20 minutes, then wrapped it up. No Neosporin. I left the foot alone for almost a week. When I removed the bandage, all of his wound had healthy tissue covering it!

I bought the small packet of TricideNeo from Koa Acres. It had the best price I could find. I strongly urge people here to bite the bullet and buy the packet. Believe me, you'll end up paying more than the $25 or so that the small packet costs if you buy a lot of supposed substitutes.

I am curious by nature, so I went back to Koi Acres for information on the company that produced TricideNeo (and to buy another packet to keep on hand). This is not a creation of Big Pharma. It was created by a research team at the University of Georgia. The university had hoped to persuade a pharmaceutical company to produce it, using the team's research, but got turned down (because the companies had inferior competing products, perhaps?). So the university took matters into its own hands.

Molecular Therapeutics is basically a one-product company based on the University of Georgia research. But its main product is for HUMANS. Its website (moleculartpharma.com) creates Silvion (a spray used to heal very serious skin conditions) and Silvaklenz (a cleanser used prior to application of Silvion). These are both prescription-only preparations, but TricideNeo is mentioned on the website as using the same research but designed for koi fish with skin ulcers. From the names of the human products, and from the insistence on using distilled water to dilute the powder, I take it that all of them derive from a process of manipulating ionic silver in some way. But I've used good-grade silver preparations myself and never seen results of the sort that my rooster, Finn, had. And if I ever had a serious skin condition--e.g., shingles, ulcers that won't heal, poison ivy hypersensitivity, or a non healing surgical wound--I will INSIST that the doctor use the Silvion. Look at the website, and look at the before-during-after photos of some really dreadful skin problems.

I had never heard of this company until I got curious. Finn's foot made me a true believer. And I'm grateful that research facilities are able to produce such products without selling out to Big Pharma.