The Duck Feet Thread

[Julie Birb]

To tell you the truth Julie, I am not sure...  Some things I have read lead me to believe that actual bumblefood creates black scabs and so far these are the worst I have experienced and they didn't slow Tella down at all, but any open wound on the foot is a cause of concern.  I performed minor surgery on one of her toes and it was very traumatic, so when I saw these, I decided if she wasn't limping and she wasn't getting worse I would try to avoid surgery.  I tried the Tricide-neo and made her stand in a bath of the solution every day or every other day or something like that for 10 minutes and had to guard that she wouldn't drink it and she would end up splashing it around, we had to wear rubber gloves and try not to get it on our clothes / person, plus we had to make up a new batch every week because it expires once you mix it with distilled water - it was a real pain and when I ran out ($60 pack) there was no real difference on Tella's feet.  So I started treating her instead with clear iodine.  It took about a week before we decided that the little applicator that comes with the bottle was worthless and bought some small paint brushes to apply the iodine.  We finally settled on treating her (and Ettie who was about half as bad) daily and doing a weekly check on every duck in the flock (which we still do).  Every little cut gets iodine.  We are now on our third bottle (with some minor spills here and there) and there is no way we have spent near the money that the Tricide-neo cost and everyone is healthy.  Now if these are just scabs and we are giving them a preventive antibiotic as opposed to bumblefoot, the Tricide-neo might work better when there is an actual bad infection, so I am not completely discounting it.  I would love to hear others opinions on this...

Well, what you guys did sure worked. Seems like colorless iodine should always be on hand. Do ducks and geese in the wild experience similar web problems? It's scary considering an infection in the foot could become systemic. Tella is such a good girl to let you hold her. Ettie wouldn't like it?

 

[Tevyes Dad]

None of them "like" it. All of them tolerate it. The level of stress varies. But yes Tella has less stress than Ettie.