Right to the point as in the title: I've learned the hard way that traction/grip tape can cause serious bumblefoot eventually. The problematic part of the tape is a clear plastic layer that, in at least the brands I used, becomes brittle when cold and likes to curl when the black coating is worn away and the ambient temperatures fluctuate. Once worn, weathered, and brittle, fragments of that clear layer break off and can be sharp enough to dig into skin. Bad news for chicken feet and also not very easy to spot when an edge starts to fray because the material that separates from the adhesive and becomes dangerous is transparent.
I used 4" wide cut-to-length grip tape like you put on steps for a ramp with my chickens last year since a coupe of my birds really struggle with tranditional wood ridges, and the angle was slightly too steep to just be a smooth sheet of wood. I couldn't find any instances of people reporting problems with grip tape, so I gave it a try. At worst I thought the tape might just break apart or get covered in mud and be useless, but never read anything to suggest it would be dangerous for them (hence why I'm posting this!).
Note the clear material visible at the top end of a damaged grip tape fragment in the photo below - I have unfortunately been pulling that out of my poor chickens' feet for the past month. I kept this fragment separate and observed that the clear material is much more rigid at 40F and below and breaks into tiny, rhomboid pieces like I pulled out of my chickens' feet - but when it's warm, like 80F and above it's pliable and even a bit sticky (which makes it a bear to remove from a warm bird foot when it's really dug in). The tape lasted around 8-9 months for me before rather suddenly turning into a bumblefoot factory.
Since I can't use wood slats on the ramp in question, I've switched to using a soft, ribbed rubber mat cut to size and anchored to the wood at the very edges. I've had no new cases of bumblefoot since making that switch.
I used 4" wide cut-to-length grip tape like you put on steps for a ramp with my chickens last year since a coupe of my birds really struggle with tranditional wood ridges, and the angle was slightly too steep to just be a smooth sheet of wood. I couldn't find any instances of people reporting problems with grip tape, so I gave it a try. At worst I thought the tape might just break apart or get covered in mud and be useless, but never read anything to suggest it would be dangerous for them (hence why I'm posting this!).
Note the clear material visible at the top end of a damaged grip tape fragment in the photo below - I have unfortunately been pulling that out of my poor chickens' feet for the past month. I kept this fragment separate and observed that the clear material is much more rigid at 40F and below and breaks into tiny, rhomboid pieces like I pulled out of my chickens' feet - but when it's warm, like 80F and above it's pliable and even a bit sticky (which makes it a bear to remove from a warm bird foot when it's really dug in). The tape lasted around 8-9 months for me before rather suddenly turning into a bumblefoot factory.
Since I can't use wood slats on the ramp in question, I've switched to using a soft, ribbed rubber mat cut to size and anchored to the wood at the very edges. I've had no new cases of bumblefoot since making that switch.
