Quail Bumblefoot - kernel?

[MystOpal]

Good evening,
My quail got Bumblefoot (I'm not sure for how long, but she was limping quite a lot this morning, so after school I took a look at her and she had Bumblefoot). I'm pretty sure she got it because of the pellet bedding, I added some water but there are still parts that are pelletized and I think that caused it, so I'll be fixing that.
But that's neither here nor there. I've seen some other posts about bumblefoot and tried to do my own research before asking here, but either I didn't look in depth enough or the info wasn't readily available, as I still have some questions.
I gave her feet an Epsom salt bath, and I applied some mupirocin, set up another area for her with paper towels on the bottom, gave her some food and water. I tried bandaging her feet but didn't have anything I could use easily so I decided to give her a break and stop stressing her so much for a bit.
My question is primarily about the kernels of the Bumblefoot, from what I've read you're supposed to get rid of the kernels by popping or cutting them, but I'm not entirely sure if my quail has kernels (some say that they don't see kernels with quail I guess?) and if she doesn't need her kernels gone, I don't want to harm her by messing with it. And her ankle/knee joint looks a bit swollen to me, but I might just be overthinking it.
If you have any other tips please let me know!

Have a great day,

Myst

 

[Nabiki]

I don't have a lot of experience with bumblefoot, but I don't see anything that looks like a kernel on those feet. I would keep giving her the warm epsom salt baths and keep her on clean bedding until she heals. You can use antibacterial ointment, but make sure it doesn't contain pain killers.

 

[catesquire]

I've never found a kernel on mine, and never heard of someone who has on quail when looking through old threads. I'm with Nabiki on just continuing the baths + antibiotics as needed--they should heal fine as long as the source of the issue is gone, just keep an eye out for whether the scabs are falling off on their own or whether you need to gently tug them after as foot bath to get them off as the quail heals.

I would be suspicious about the pellets themselves causing the issue--unless, do you just have a super thin layer of them? I could see that causing irritation. I do around two inches of pellets and my quail don't seem to have an issue with them, but at that point they squish when the quail walk. I would personally check and see if there are any wet spots building up somewhere in the bedding--my quail LOVE to poop in the area between the food and water, so I usually have to change the bedding just in that spot regularly while the other areas of their cage can go much longer and stay perfectly dry. It's usually wet bedding that causes bumblefoot, at least for my quail (had a waterer spring a leak a few months back, so I have way more experience with it than I ever wanted. My girls' feet looked similar to your's, and they all healed up fine!)