Post-bumble surgery care advice needed.

[Moomin2]

Moomin2 - you will learn sooooo much from the people here at BYC. To calm your girl, catch her and sit with her in your lap. Have a loosely scrambled egg (plain, or add a little olive oil or cheese or apple cider vinegar or yogurt) ready. Hold her snugly, so she can't flap around, and she will relax. Gently stroke her earlobes, comb, and wattles, and talk to her. Feed her whatever she will eat. Holding her wings in, s l o w l y put her on her back on your lap, so you can examine her wound. (I smell wounds to detect infection, but that might be too gross for you!) Can you get "human" triple-antibiotic ointment, like Bacitracin or Neosporin and knuckle bandaids (the fabric kind, with the 2 flaps on each side) at your drugstore? If so, fill the hole with the ointment and bandage her foot, so the flaps come up between her toes and wrap on her foot. Keep us all posted!

Thanks so much for this Redblack10! I'm going to go and try it out right now! I don't have what I need to bandage her wound so will need to go to the pharmacy (They don't have drugstores here - ridiculous I know! I don't even know if they'll give me antibiotic cream without a prescription) I am an animal lover but am just getting to know chickens (They were my partners' before I moved in) so I'm basically having to learn everything.

 

[Moomin2]

He may want it to drain for good reason. I'd use betadine first aid solution. Squirt a bit in there at least once a day. It won't burn, and is very good at preventing infection.

I honestly have no idea. Maybe there were cysts in there or something. I'm at least going to go and try and calm her to get a look at it.

 

[Moomin2]

Your hen would benefit from daily foot soaks in Epsom salts, up to three times a day. Do you have access to Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate)? It can help debride the wound and promote healing while flushing away accumulated bacteria that can develop into infection. If you have no Epsom salt, warm water and a mild soap would have to do.

Let the wound air dry, and it may stop oozing.

Yes I do have Epsom salt. I gave her a foot bath yesterday to get a good look at her foot and confirm that it was bumble-foot.

 

[Moomin2]

Moomin2 - you will learn sooooo much from the people here at BYC. To calm your girl, catch her and sit with her in your lap. Have a loosely scrambled egg (plain, or add a little olive oil or cheese or apple cider vinegar or yogurt) ready. Hold her snugly, so she can't flap around, and she will relax. Gently stroke her earlobes, comb, and wattles, and talk to her. Feed her whatever she will eat. Holding her wings in, s l o w l y put her on her back on your lap, so you can examine her wound. (I smell wounds to detect infection, but that might be too gross for you!) Can you get "human" triple-antibiotic ointment, like Bacitracin or Neosporin and knuckle bandaids (the fabric kind, with the 2 flaps on each side) at your drugstore? If so, fill the hole with the ointment and bandage her foot, so the flaps come up between her toes and wrap on her foot. Keep us all posted!

So, I went in, armed with my scrambled egg and caught her and put her on my lap. She did relax a bit after about fifteen minutes of stroking but wouldn't eat anything. She was panting and breathing fast and despite a good 30minutes of calming she was just desperate to get away at the first opportunity. There is no way I could have got her on her back or even managed a foot bath without someone else holding her as she's a big girl.

She seems completely traumatised after yesterday. Before that she was the easiest to handle and sat down in submission when approached. Now she flaps and panics. She just flew up and is sitting on the radiator...

Plus she's walking in her faeces despite my best cleaning efforts. There was no sign of blood or 'draining' on my leg where her foot had been resting for 30mins so I think I'll be going out to buy foot-wrapping materials!

 

[azygous]

Get some baby aspirin while you're out. I think she's likely stressed from pain. She can have up to two baby aspirin per day. (Eighty-one grains twice a day)

 

[Northern.Ontario]

Use baby aspirin for the pain. Do Epsom salt soaks a few times a day. Spray the wound with Vetericyn. Don't pack the wound with polysporin. You need to let it "air-out". But definitely wrap it to keep dirt out. Keep the chicken in a small dog crate with towels inside.

 

[redblack10]

Thinking of you -- will keep watching for good news. I know she'll get past this!

 

[Moomin2]

Update: I got the baby Aspirin and she had a dose last night and another this morning. She is MUCH more like herself since having it and has been sitting in her nest box instead of behind the bidet. She even laid an egg last night. We did a foot bath this morning and got some photos of her foot plus wrapped it in a kind of makeshift bandage (all I could get at the pharmacy) which she seems to be keeping on.

She went back to the vet and he cut more pus out of her foot. He didn't cut more of her pad so there wasn't really any bleeding, unlike the last time, though he was taking chunks of stuff out of there. Again, he was completely against putting any kind of bandage on there, saying that there is no point... I put one on anyway when we got back... He also said that she doesn't need antibiotics and that he needs to see her every few days to cut the chunks of infection out. Here are the photos of her foot: I didn't take more after her second surgery as her foot looked exactly the same from the outside as it did this morning. This is after her foot soak so her belly is a bit wet... Sorry for the blurryness! She kept moving her foot! I could try to get better ones tomorrow.

 

[azygous]

Thanks for posting these photos. It shows a very serious case of bumblefoot, and it resembles the case I had that took two years to resolve. Like your hen, it involved very swollen foot pads. Several months into my hen's treatment, I decided to put her through a round of cephalexin. It helped.

Daily soaks will greatly assist your hen to heal. I would keep them up. Having the vet oversee her surgical needs is a very good idea. A serious wound needs regular debridement in order to heal, so having your vet do it will save you a lot of work and hassle.

I would still bandage the wound. Even kept in a clean crate, the hen could step in poop and get an unneeded exposure to bacteria that would work at cross purposes to healing.

By the way, my hen with serious bumblefoot came to me as a rescued hen. She was five years old and the lone survivor of a bobcat attack on her flock.

 

[getaclue]

I like to use the Rubbermaid shelf liner with the waffle holes in it for their hospital cage. I get, and cut it to size so I have about 3 days worth, being able to change it out 2 times a day. Rinse it good, and either toss into the washer with soap, and a little bleach, or toss it in a plastic tub, and wash it. Let it dry, and it's ready to go. It's soft on their feet, almost any liquid goes through it, and a lot of the pooh too, so it keeps their feet cleaner, and dryer. Again, I just roll it up, and change it out twice a day. Prior to putting one recovering from bumble surgery back into their clean hospital cage, I pour Betadine in, and on the wound.