Pekin with bumblefoot...help

[HopMomma]

Ok community I need help again. I have a pekin female who since this spring has had some issue with her feet and I've kept an eye out for bumblefoot because i was aware it was a thing. No signs of black scabs or swelling or any of that until recently. Tonight i had had enough of the wrapping and ointment due to it not making progress and she is suffering. I did a small sterile procedure tonight with the help of my husband. She took a nice long (25min)Epsom salt soak in my tub (she loved it) once out she was swaddled in a warm towel (my husband ) placed on a sterile counter with everything new and in surgical wrapping (my mother in law is a vet I get the hookup and have a great stock) I cleansed the area and started running the black hard scab. Got a few chunks but decided it needed the scalpel. I slowly and gently removes the entire tissue and surrounding nasty tissue. I didnt however ever find a hard center plug that I've read about. Almost every article I've read says that part needs removed. Unfortunately I didnt get pictures but it was about the size of a quarter. Once I got all nasty tissue and surround crumbles I had fresh blood. I continued to cleanse the whole time. Then I wrapped it, sprayed it and placed triple antibiotic ointment (pain free) on it. She is now in my greenhouse separated from the others with food and limited water to prevent her from getting in the mud/snow/water. She seems better and not so painful to walk or stand. I will check it again tomorrow and so on. I'm wondering if I need to look tomorrow for a hard plug? It looked to be pretty fresh meat I didnt want to go deeper if I was getting fresh blood. Please any advice without criticism would be great. I'm always open to helpful criticism!! Take care love yall so much

 

[DobieLover]

Not sure why anyone would possibly criticize you! I seems like you did a fantastic job.
I would continue to change her dressing daily and keep applying the ointment and monitor the healing of the foot and work hard to keeping her area completely dry and as clean as you can.
I've read more than once where a core was never found. Sometimes there is a relapse. If that happens, I might consider adding Tricide Neo soaks to the regime with or without surgery depending on the severity.

 

[Isaac 0]

The degree to which eschar and necrotic tissue are present with Bumblefoot cases will vary with each induvial. Some birds totally lack the black core, and only show signs of abscessation, others may appear with a significant-sized core, it just depends.

By the sounds of it, it seems you've done a pretty good job as far as treatment. The main goal with most cases is scraping out any necrotic tissue to allow proper healing, as well as excavation of any puss. Once, the area appears to be cleaned out well, apply an ointment to the area, wrap gauze around and bandage until the area is healed.

Correction of predisposing environmental or nutritional factors is also an important step in the treatment and further prevention of Bumblefoot development. The point to which environmental considerations need to be focused greatly increases with a bird-like a Pekin, due to their heavyweight, they are often common breeds affected by Bumblefoot.

Bumblefoot can be set on by several factors, but hard/unforgiving substrate in the run area that promotes plantar surface erosion, and subsequent flaking allows bacteria to penetrate inside the tissue, and cause infection. Ensuring the birds outside run area is soft, and dry can help prevent the problem from reoccurring in your flock.

 

[humblehillsfarm]

Ok community I need help again. I have a pekin female who since this spring has had some issue with her feet and I've kept an eye out for bumblefoot because i was aware it was a thing. No signs of black scabs or swelling or any of that until recently. Tonight i had had enough of the wrapping and ointment due to it not making progress and she is suffering. I did a small sterile procedure tonight with the help of my husband. She took a nice long (25min)Epsom salt soak in my tub (she loved it) once out she was swaddled in a warm towel (my husband ) placed on a sterile counter with everything new and in surgical wrapping (my mother in law is a vet I get the hookup and have a great stock) I cleansed the area and started running the black hard scab. Got a few chunks but decided it needed the scalpel. I slowly and gently removes the entire tissue and surrounding nasty tissue. I didnt however ever find a hard center plug that I've read about. Almost every article I've read says that part needs removed. Unfortunately I didnt get pictures but it was about the size of a quarter. Once I got all nasty tissue and surround crumbles I had fresh blood. I continued to cleanse the whole time. Then I wrapped it, sprayed it and placed triple antibiotic ointment (pain free) on it. She is now in my greenhouse separated from the others with food and limited water to prevent her from getting in the mud/snow/water. She seems better and not so painful to walk or stand. I will check it again tomorrow and so on. I'm wondering if I need to look tomorrow for a hard plug? It looked to be pretty fresh meat I didnt want to go deeper if I was getting fresh blood. Please any advice without criticism would be great. I'm always open to helpful criticism!! Take care love yall so much

Not all bumbles have a plug. It is my opinion, and in my own singular experience, that without a plug the infection is still present. My local avian vet said sometimes surgery can make bumblefoot worse. I had one bird I had surgery performed on to remove the bumblefoot, there was no plug, the infection came back but not worse, simply the same. I now have another bird with bumblefoot. I've tried Epson salt soaks alone and they've never been helpful.

Now I am pulling out all of the stops. Both birds are on Baytril 2.5% oral injection (https://allbirdproducts.com/products/baytril-2-5) and I have been wrapping the foot with vet wrap after applying silver sulfadiazine cream. In one bird which had two bumblefoots on each foot, the bumblefoot has fallen out entirely, leaving an open but clean cavity which I continue to wrap until it's closed. For the other bird (who has had surgery and the longest running case of bumblefoot), there has been marked shrinkage of the bumblefoot, but thus far the plug is still there. They've been on antibiotics for three weeks and I have been giving the entire flock fermented feed since those two have been on antibiotics for so long. None of them are laying after their molt.