Non-Bumblefoot Foot Growth?

[Cyberdelic]

Yesterday, one of the hens decided to "help me" in the garden. As I planted things, she'd try to pull them out of the ground. Such a good helper...

As I went to pick her up and put her somewhere else, I noticed an odd growth on the top of her foot, between two toes. I don't have any pics right now (will try to take some today after work), but I took a quick look at her feet. I don't remember seeing an abscess or any sort of weirdness on the bottom of her feet like typically gets mentioned in posts about bumblefoot. She's not limping and the foot isn't swollen. So far, she's just her normal self and happens to have an odd growth there.

The growth itself was "fleshy" feeling -- not hard. As far as looks go, it reminded me of a fat grubworm but about half as long. It was a fairly pale color with a small circle of darker color at the end (didn't seem quite like a scab, though).

I know, I know... I need to post pictures. But has anyone run into this before? At least if I have some options other than bumblefoot, I can do some searches and see if it looks similar.

I've been trying to track down a vet who handles poultry, but not having much luck. I live between a fairly rural area and an urban city. The city vets don't really deal with poultry and the rural folks probably just cull sick birds and move on.

 

[Chickenaddict]

Yup! Bumblefoot can rear its ugly head just about anywhere on the foot. Had a hen with a ball like growth between her toes, lil darker colored area at the bottom. I ended up cutting into the ball to extract the plug and then went in thru the bottom to get the rest of the gunk out leaving her with a hole right thru her foot between the 2 toes. 1 week and the hole closed and she was back to normal again. The sooner you treat them for this the better the bird is gonna be and less healing time.

 

[Cyberdelic]

Thanks, Chickenaddict. Hopefully it's early enough that she'll be back in action soon. If I don't find an avian vet soon, I'll attempt it myself and hope for the best. In the meantime, I've been looking into Tricide-Neo soaks.

 

[Chickenaddict]

Your welcome. The soaks are a very long process, the surgery is easier then most folks would think. There is a thread on here that shows step by step directions.... https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=236649


ETA: where are my manners!

 

[Cyberdelic]

Out of curiosity, is there always going to be a scab/abscess/etc. on the bottom of the foot as well? I might not have taken as close of a look at it yesterday evening as I should have, but I don't recall seeing anything. I'll likely see if I can talk my girlfriend into doing the surgery. I don't have the stomach for it. lol.

 

[Tanichca]

Oooh, makin the gal do the dirty work, eh? Lol.

good luck with your bird!

 

[Cyberdelic]

As promised, here are the pictures. Looked a bit different than I remember -- especially now that I know what to look for...

She stepped in a rather nasty area of the run while I was chasing her.

I bet she knew I was going to take a picture.

Anyhow, this is a view from the top:

And here is the bottom:

After looking at the other foot, I can definitely see the difference:

I can't believe I hadn't noticed how swollen it was under there yesterday!

Anyhow, the vetwrap stuff should be here in the next day or so. Hopefully by the end of the week, we can get the bad stuff out and get her cleaned up, bandaged, and back to being in tip-top shape once more.

 

[Cyberdelic]

Thanks for the encouragement, folks!

The dirty work is over now. The girlfriend and I (ok, mostly the girlfriend) got the puss and bumble out and cleaned it up as best we could. Then we packed it with Neosporin and used Vetwrap to keep things as clean as possible. Sometimes she walks fine and other times she limps a bit or holds it up. After all that went down (took about 45-60 min), that seems understandable. Some of the other hens have been a little too curious of the vetwrap for my liking, though. I hope she doesn't get picked on much. I don't currently have anything set up for isolating her from the other birds.