Outta Here
Songster
- May 17, 2021
- 462
- 1,669
- 186
I've never had bumblefoot in my flocks over the years, but I bought a rooster who came holding up one foot. When I examined him on the roost, there was an abscess with the scab/hole. It was not inflamed with pus yet, but it was sizable. I had watched videos of painstakingly slicing and then cleaning these abscesses out with a razor knife, followed by bandaging and antibiotics. It looked awful to perform but evidently necessary to save the life of the bird. But here I was holding the new rooster who was petrified of me, no supplies, nothing, thinking of stressing him again later when I had my surgery supplies ready.
Suddenly I remembered my young daughter had a wart we had unsuccessfully tried to remove for months, and she caught it on the chain of the swing set and ripped it out to the roots.
So I gave the abscess a tentative, then harder, twisting pull and the whole thing just plucked out, kernel and all!! I think the bad flesh just tore away from the good flesh better than my knife could have done. I squeezed, wishing I had peroxide, set him on the roost, and turned out the light. That gave the gaping bloody hole time to drain and dry overnight on the clean, routinely painted, sponged-down-daily roost. I'm not one who takes antibiotics unless I'm in dire straights, nor do I give them to my dogs for every wound, so I did not try to get any from the vet. Nor did I wrap or put salve on his wound. We live in dry Arizona, and his coop is bedded with dry (and drying) sand which is raked clean daily, sometimes (and definitely this time) before the chickens even hop down off the roosts. When he went to free range on my lawn over the next three days, he did not lift his foot or show any sign of pain or infection. On the third day I checked and there is no trace of any abscess--the rooster has a completely sound and normal foot.
It was extremely quick, giving minimal stress to the rooster, and fast to heal (under clean conditions). This may have been a once-in-a-lifetime fluke, I don't know. But I thought I would share it just in case it might work again.
Suddenly I remembered my young daughter had a wart we had unsuccessfully tried to remove for months, and she caught it on the chain of the swing set and ripped it out to the roots.
So I gave the abscess a tentative, then harder, twisting pull and the whole thing just plucked out, kernel and all!! I think the bad flesh just tore away from the good flesh better than my knife could have done. I squeezed, wishing I had peroxide, set him on the roost, and turned out the light. That gave the gaping bloody hole time to drain and dry overnight on the clean, routinely painted, sponged-down-daily roost. I'm not one who takes antibiotics unless I'm in dire straights, nor do I give them to my dogs for every wound, so I did not try to get any from the vet. Nor did I wrap or put salve on his wound. We live in dry Arizona, and his coop is bedded with dry (and drying) sand which is raked clean daily, sometimes (and definitely this time) before the chickens even hop down off the roosts. When he went to free range on my lawn over the next three days, he did not lift his foot or show any sign of pain or infection. On the third day I checked and there is no trace of any abscess--the rooster has a completely sound and normal foot.
It was extremely quick, giving minimal stress to the rooster, and fast to heal (under clean conditions). This may have been a once-in-a-lifetime fluke, I don't know. But I thought I would share it just in case it might work again.
