Nonsurgical bumblefoot treatment

[julskinka]

Just wanted to report that I was able to treat my (very, very skittish and difficult-to-handle) Polish for her bumblefoot with zero cutting.

• Set up a warm bucket of water with epsom salts, and prepped gloves, neosporin with q-tip, tweezers, vetericyn, duoderm gcq, scissors, 1" vet wrap, a bit of medical tape, and a cage with food and water.
• Stole her off the roost at night, wrapped in a towel. Gave her a sip of aspirin water in advance.
• Soaked the foot for about 10 minutes; Pried and prodded the plug with tweezers; soaked for 5 more minutes; prodded some more; so on and so forth several more times until after about 30 min I was finally able to pry the entire plug clean out of her. No bleeding, no fuss from her (who, I will stress again, is a chicken that very much does not like to be handled).
• Sprayed with veterycin, filled hole with neosporin, placed a pad of duoderm film, wrapped with vetwrap and taped.
• Put her to bed in the cage.

Hopefully she has a speedy recovery! I definitely recommend trying this technique before resorting to surgical intervention. It took a little patience but was worth it.

 

[azygous]

@julskinka you perfectly described my usual method of treating bumblefoot. Most case do not require cutting out the pus plug. Most of the time the soaking makes it possible to just scrape and lift out the plug with a thumb nail. Too many chicken keepers are put off treating bumblefoot because they think it requires "surgery". Thanks for posting this to reassure folks they are perfectly capable of treating their chicken and it doesn't require vet certification.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I've never had to do any actual cutting either and use the same technique you use (minus the aspirin). As long as the bumblefoot isn't too bad cutting isn't necessary. I keep a good pair of tweezers around and a craft knife (the ones with the snap off blades) for scraping around the edges of the wound to easily clean up any loose skin bits.

 

[coach723]

Agree whole heartedly. This method is always my first go at bumblefoot. I only resort to surgery (which has happened once) when this doesn't work. I think most bumblefoot cases respond to this method quite well, especially if they are not too advanced.

 

[RockyAcres]

@julskinka you perfectly described my usual method of treating bumblefoot. Most case do not require cutting out the pus plug. Most of the time the soaking makes it possible to just scrape and lift out the plug with a thumb nail. Too many chicken keepers are put off treating bumblefoot because they think it requires "surgery". Thanks for posting this to reassure folks they are perfectly capable of treating their chicken and it doesn't require vet certification.

Hi! I realize this thread is old but I just can't seem to find info on recovery time. I used this same method on my cochin and it went well. I'm curious how long it takes for swelling to go down though? Her toes had swelled up more so than her pads and since removing the bumbles it doesn't appear that the swelling has gone down at all. How long does it typically take for the swelling to go away?

 

[coach723]

I don't think there is any single answer to that, it very much depends on the particular bird and how much infection there is. Normally I would think that swelling would go down at least some within a few days to a week, if it doesn't at all then there may still be infection in there. Some bumbles are very contained and easily removed, some are more complicated. If you do daily soaks in epsom salts that may help, likewise you can try daily soaks in tricide neo (a fish antibiotic for koi) and see if that helps, more info on that here:
https://ouroneacrefarm.com/2013/11/09/bumblefoot-treatment-tricideneo/\
Pictures of the foot are often helpful in trying to give specifics.

 

[azygous]

As @coach723 stated, healing time varies. I've had superficial bumblefoot heal in just three days, while a very stubborn case took two years, and the swelling never went away.