Blue Raptor
Ad Astra Per Aspera
No problem!
Treating bumblefoot
- Thread starter ChickCrazyWorryWort
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #22
ChickCrazyWorryWort
Songster
So number 1 is the foot we’ve already dug at and number 2 is the one we’ve just been soaking. We soaked them both for 20 mins in warm epson salt water. I put prid on both spots and wrapped them both up. I’ll post pictures of what it looks like Saturday when I go to pull out the second one.
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- Thread starter
- #23
ChickCrazyWorryWort
Songster
Soaking mild cases of bumblefoot can heal these infections but these need surgery at this point. And it won't go away on its own. I copied this from an article I wrote for our Learning Center here on BYC.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/leg-foot-and-toe-issues-in-poultry-of-all-ages.68093/
BUMBLEFOOT
Bumblefoot is basically a laymen's term for an infection that occurs in the pad or toes of the birds foot. It can be very serious if not properly tended to and if not healed can cause permanent lameness and even death if the infection goes systemic.
How does a chicken get Bumblefoot anyway? Any time the skin gets broken through, worn off, punctured or even bruised on the birds pads or toes, leaves the internal tissue open to infection. The outer skin is a defense mechanism and protects the internal parts of the body from bacteria or virus's to enter. Once the skin is breached, the bird can contract infection.
There are a few things you can do to help prevent Bumblefoot from occurring and if nothing else catch it quick before it turns into an infection you can no longer treat.
1. Keep your roost bars low to the floor: Chickens like to get off the floor to sleep, however they do not need to sleep in the rafters. A a roost bar a foot off the ground is good enough for a bird and they will feel safe to roost. Jumping down from high places will bruise the bottom of the pads and toes and could lead to Bumblefoot over time. (Not to mention sprains and tendon tears which I will cover later).
2. Too small of roosting bar or one with rough edges: If your bar is too small, there will be great pressure on all of the foot as the bird rests it heavy body. These points of contact will cut into the foot and cause damage to the skin in these areas. So use the proper sized roosting bar for your bird's breed and round off all edges. Keep it smooth. No nail heads sticking up or chips of wood hanging out. You may think they are smart enough not to sleep on these areas, but they may not know any different or not have a choice if the bar is crowded.
3. Birds kept on wire are highly susceptible to Bumblefoot, especially the heavier breeds. The pressure points on such small areas of the pads and toes are too much for the delicate skin, eventually wearing it thin enough to allow bacteria to enter. Also, hard surfaces such as concrete will wear the pads down enough to cause Bumblefoot. As would sharp small gravel, puncturing holes in the delicate pads.
4. A good diet and healthy birds: A diet lacking in certain vitamins will leave the bird prone to thin skin and the inability to heal properly. So don't over do the goodies, make sure free rangers have plenty of time to eat their poultry feed and always offer up fresh clean water daily. It never hurts to add probiotics to a birds water or food a couple of times a week to keep the immune system pumped up.
5. And finally check your birds feet occasionally. A simple feel of the pad, webbing and toes as you pick them up will tell you a lot. Once or twice a month give everybody a quick foot soaking to clean off the crud and check the feet. The quicker you catch these things, the easier it will be on you and the bird.
Symptoms and treatment of Bumblefoot
Bumblefoot is characterized by swelling, heat, redness, the bird may be limping and usually a black dot or wound with pus on the pad or toe of the bird. Not all black dots on the bottom of the pad or toe are serious enough to need treatment. If you check your birds feet over the lifetime of your flock, you will see lots of black dots and scabs that have healed over. It is the ones that are infected that need treatment.
First thing to do if you suspect Bumblefoot is to compare this foot with the other foot. Both pads and toes should look the same for the most part. So if one pad is very swollen, hard, hot and you can see where a puncture wound has been or is, then you indeed have Bumblefoot in this pad or toe. If all you see is a black dot with no swelling or heat, then chances are the bird has already healed over from this injury. If there is only a very slight bit of swelling, no redness or much heat, you can clean off the foot in warm water, wipe the pad with an alcohol wipe and apply some Neosporin (without the painkiller) to the pad. I like to do this at night so the bird will be on the roost bar all night and the Neosporin has time to soak in. Do this each night for a week and generally it heals over completely. You can also wrap the foot for a week or so if it is a mild case and this will give the foot time to heal and stay dry. (I am about to cover wrapping the foot in the next paragraph)
DOING SURGERY:
Just leaving this infection alone will not cure anything. Oral antibiotics will not clear it up either. It will require you remove the infection with surgery. I realize this may seem daunting at first, however it is not that hard to do. The bird is no doubt in a great deal of pain at this point and the infection could possibly have spread throughout the body. You will not cause much if any pain doing this surgery as you are only going to be cleaning out the dead rotten gunk. You are not going to be removing any live tissue. There will be little if any blood as well. Once you have done this successfully, you will see just how simple this is the do. We all hope we never have to do a surgery on our chickens feet, however over the course of keeping poultry, you may have to at some point.
Here is a list of supplies you will need:
A large towel (for wrapping the bird up in to work on them)
Tiny instruments like dental pics, tweezers, small scalpel, small scissors
Several rolls of Vet Wrap (slice the entire tubes into 1 inch rolls. Like you are slicing a loaf of bread.)
Gauze doubled over and cut into 1 inch squares
Alcohol wipes
Neosporin (without the painkiller)
Preparation H
Hydrogen Peroxide
An empty syringe with no needle
Have everything ready before you begin. Always boil all your instruments for 5 mins before using however it is best to sterilize them right after using them. You do not want to contaminate them for the next use should you need to go back in at a later date. I like to soak everything in bleach for several minutes after they have been boiled. Store them in a clean sanitized container.
Pick a place to do this whether it be on a bench outside or at a table in the house, and make sure you have good light. Get everything laid out next to you so you have easy access during the entire process.
First you will want to soak the birds foot in a warm bath with Epsom Salts to clean off the foot and help to draw the infection to the surface. Scrub the foot off well and then carry the bird to your work space.While the bird is standing, wrap the towel around the bird's wings and breast area all the way around tight enough to restrain the bird. Then grab them and flip them over and lay them on your lap, head at your belly, head and feet sticking out. Wipe the pad and infection area with an alcohol wipe and you are ready to begin. (If you have any open wounds on your hands or fingers, you will want to wear some thin latex gloves as well to keep any bacteria from entering your own body.)
With a dental pic, gently remove the scab or pussy area of the hole. You are not going to cut into any flesh, just remove the cap to this infection. Imagine this infection like a zit. Basically it is a pocket of pus. Generally the infection is in this hole beneath the scab you have just removed, not to the sides or anything. With your scalpel begin to dig this gunk out of there. It may not be all that deep, however sometimes there is a pus ball at the bottom. Keep squeezing, digging, and picking until you are left with a hole. If you are digging deeply and start to bring up blood, you have reached bottom and probably got most of the infection out. This entire process can take 45 mins to an hour, depending on how bad the infection is. So just take your time and get as much of it out as you can. You should be left with a gaping hole in the pad.
On this first time only, you will want to take your empty syringe and suck up some hydrogen peroxide and flush the hole out. Stick the tip of the syringe in the hole iin the pad and squeeze in 2 or 3 cc/ml's into the hole. (this tip is now contaminated and will need to be sterilized before you ever use it again.) Let this peroxide set in the hole for a couple of minutes and then squeeze the pad to get much of it out. Next you are going to pack the hole with neosporin. NEVER insert the tip of the tube into the hole. This WILL contaminate the entire tube with bacteria. So squeeze a good load onto your finger and scrape your finger across the wound hole so that it packs the wound hole. Then take some Preparation H and squeeze some on your finger. Rub this all over the pad. This will help reduce swelling.
Next, put one of your small cut gauze pads over the hole. Take one of your vet wrap roll slices and begin to wrap the foot. You are going to start up on the leg and inch or so above the foot joint. Start to wrap down the leg, around the pad and up through the webbing a couple of times until all of the foot is covered and then go back up the leg to where you started. Cut the vet wrap and squeeze everything together. Vet Wrap sticks to itself. You do not need to wrap tightly but not too loose it won't stay on. A light pressure as you are wrapping will surfice. A good indication is to check the birds foot 5 mins after wrapping. (during this process the birds foot will probably turn cold) 5 mins after
surgery the birds foot should have returned to being very warm. If the toes are cold, you have wrapped too tightly.
After surgery and for the next 30 days, you will need to keep the bird on clean, dry surfaces. No mud, water, dirty pens. Very clean and dry. This is the key to healing. First week you will need to unwrap the foot each day and check to see if the infection is returning. If the scab is red or dark in color, it is healing nicely. If the scab turns pussy yellow, you will need to go back in to the hole and repeat the above process. However each day for that first week, you will need to reapply the Neosporin, a small gauze pad and re wrap the foot with clean vet wrap.
At the 2nd week or so, you can check the foot every 2 or 3 days. Continue applying the Neosprin and keep it wrapped. It generally takes 30 days for the scab to fall off. Do not pick or work on it. Let it fall off by itself. You must keep the hole wrapped until the entire healing process is done or more bacteria can enter the hole. One last thing, NEVER use any sticky tape for wrapping such as Duct Tape. These sorts of tape will damage the scales of the leg and cause injury to the bird. Oral antibiotics should only be used if the infection has spread throughout the body and the bird is very sick.
These things can take 4 to 6 weeks to heal, keep them clean, dry and wrapped until scabs fall off.
Keep us posted!
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/leg-foot-and-toe-issues-in-poultry-of-all-ages.68093/
BUMBLEFOOT
Bumblefoot is basically a laymen's term for an infection that occurs in the pad or toes of the birds foot. It can be very serious if not properly tended to and if not healed can cause permanent lameness and even death if the infection goes systemic.
How does a chicken get Bumblefoot anyway? Any time the skin gets broken through, worn off, punctured or even bruised on the birds pads or toes, leaves the internal tissue open to infection. The outer skin is a defense mechanism and protects the internal parts of the body from bacteria or virus's to enter. Once the skin is breached, the bird can contract infection.
There are a few things you can do to help prevent Bumblefoot from occurring and if nothing else catch it quick before it turns into an infection you can no longer treat.
1. Keep your roost bars low to the floor: Chickens like to get off the floor to sleep, however they do not need to sleep in the rafters. A a roost bar a foot off the ground is good enough for a bird and they will feel safe to roost. Jumping down from high places will bruise the bottom of the pads and toes and could lead to Bumblefoot over time. (Not to mention sprains and tendon tears which I will cover later).
2. Too small of roosting bar or one with rough edges: If your bar is too small, there will be great pressure on all of the foot as the bird rests it heavy body. These points of contact will cut into the foot and cause damage to the skin in these areas. So use the proper sized roosting bar for your bird's breed and round off all edges. Keep it smooth. No nail heads sticking up or chips of wood hanging out. You may think they are smart enough not to sleep on these areas, but they may not know any different or not have a choice if the bar is crowded.
3. Birds kept on wire are highly susceptible to Bumblefoot, especially the heavier breeds. The pressure points on such small areas of the pads and toes are too much for the delicate skin, eventually wearing it thin enough to allow bacteria to enter. Also, hard surfaces such as concrete will wear the pads down enough to cause Bumblefoot. As would sharp small gravel, puncturing holes in the delicate pads.
4. A good diet and healthy birds: A diet lacking in certain vitamins will leave the bird prone to thin skin and the inability to heal properly. So don't over do the goodies, make sure free rangers have plenty of time to eat their poultry feed and always offer up fresh clean water daily. It never hurts to add probiotics to a birds water or food a couple of times a week to keep the immune system pumped up.
5. And finally check your birds feet occasionally. A simple feel of the pad, webbing and toes as you pick them up will tell you a lot. Once or twice a month give everybody a quick foot soaking to clean off the crud and check the feet. The quicker you catch these things, the easier it will be on you and the bird.
Symptoms and treatment of Bumblefoot
Bumblefoot is characterized by swelling, heat, redness, the bird may be limping and usually a black dot or wound with pus on the pad or toe of the bird. Not all black dots on the bottom of the pad or toe are serious enough to need treatment. If you check your birds feet over the lifetime of your flock, you will see lots of black dots and scabs that have healed over. It is the ones that are infected that need treatment.
First thing to do if you suspect Bumblefoot is to compare this foot with the other foot. Both pads and toes should look the same for the most part. So if one pad is very swollen, hard, hot and you can see where a puncture wound has been or is, then you indeed have Bumblefoot in this pad or toe. If all you see is a black dot with no swelling or heat, then chances are the bird has already healed over from this injury. If there is only a very slight bit of swelling, no redness or much heat, you can clean off the foot in warm water, wipe the pad with an alcohol wipe and apply some Neosporin (without the painkiller) to the pad. I like to do this at night so the bird will be on the roost bar all night and the Neosporin has time to soak in. Do this each night for a week and generally it heals over completely. You can also wrap the foot for a week or so if it is a mild case and this will give the foot time to heal and stay dry. (I am about to cover wrapping the foot in the next paragraph)
DOING SURGERY:
Just leaving this infection alone will not cure anything. Oral antibiotics will not clear it up either. It will require you remove the infection with surgery. I realize this may seem daunting at first, however it is not that hard to do. The bird is no doubt in a great deal of pain at this point and the infection could possibly have spread throughout the body. You will not cause much if any pain doing this surgery as you are only going to be cleaning out the dead rotten gunk. You are not going to be removing any live tissue. There will be little if any blood as well. Once you have done this successfully, you will see just how simple this is the do. We all hope we never have to do a surgery on our chickens feet, however over the course of keeping poultry, you may have to at some point.
Here is a list of supplies you will need:
A large towel (for wrapping the bird up in to work on them)
Tiny instruments like dental pics, tweezers, small scalpel, small scissors
Several rolls of Vet Wrap (slice the entire tubes into 1 inch rolls. Like you are slicing a loaf of bread.)
Gauze doubled over and cut into 1 inch squares
Alcohol wipes
Neosporin (without the painkiller)
Preparation H
Hydrogen Peroxide
An empty syringe with no needle
Have everything ready before you begin. Always boil all your instruments for 5 mins before using however it is best to sterilize them right after using them. You do not want to contaminate them for the next use should you need to go back in at a later date. I like to soak everything in bleach for several minutes after they have been boiled. Store them in a clean sanitized container.
Pick a place to do this whether it be on a bench outside or at a table in the house, and make sure you have good light. Get everything laid out next to you so you have easy access during the entire process.
First you will want to soak the birds foot in a warm bath with Epsom Salts to clean off the foot and help to draw the infection to the surface. Scrub the foot off well and then carry the bird to your work space.While the bird is standing, wrap the towel around the bird's wings and breast area all the way around tight enough to restrain the bird. Then grab them and flip them over and lay them on your lap, head at your belly, head and feet sticking out. Wipe the pad and infection area with an alcohol wipe and you are ready to begin. (If you have any open wounds on your hands or fingers, you will want to wear some thin latex gloves as well to keep any bacteria from entering your own body.)
With a dental pic, gently remove the scab or pussy area of the hole. You are not going to cut into any flesh, just remove the cap to this infection. Imagine this infection like a zit. Basically it is a pocket of pus. Generally the infection is in this hole beneath the scab you have just removed, not to the sides or anything. With your scalpel begin to dig this gunk out of there. It may not be all that deep, however sometimes there is a pus ball at the bottom. Keep squeezing, digging, and picking until you are left with a hole. If you are digging deeply and start to bring up blood, you have reached bottom and probably got most of the infection out. This entire process can take 45 mins to an hour, depending on how bad the infection is. So just take your time and get as much of it out as you can. You should be left with a gaping hole in the pad.
On this first time only, you will want to take your empty syringe and suck up some hydrogen peroxide and flush the hole out. Stick the tip of the syringe in the hole iin the pad and squeeze in 2 or 3 cc/ml's into the hole. (this tip is now contaminated and will need to be sterilized before you ever use it again.) Let this peroxide set in the hole for a couple of minutes and then squeeze the pad to get much of it out. Next you are going to pack the hole with neosporin. NEVER insert the tip of the tube into the hole. This WILL contaminate the entire tube with bacteria. So squeeze a good load onto your finger and scrape your finger across the wound hole so that it packs the wound hole. Then take some Preparation H and squeeze some on your finger. Rub this all over the pad. This will help reduce swelling.
Next, put one of your small cut gauze pads over the hole. Take one of your vet wrap roll slices and begin to wrap the foot. You are going to start up on the leg and inch or so above the foot joint. Start to wrap down the leg, around the pad and up through the webbing a couple of times until all of the foot is covered and then go back up the leg to where you started. Cut the vet wrap and squeeze everything together. Vet Wrap sticks to itself. You do not need to wrap tightly but not too loose it won't stay on. A light pressure as you are wrapping will surfice. A good indication is to check the birds foot 5 mins after wrapping. (during this process the birds foot will probably turn cold) 5 mins after
surgery the birds foot should have returned to being very warm. If the toes are cold, you have wrapped too tightly.
After surgery and for the next 30 days, you will need to keep the bird on clean, dry surfaces. No mud, water, dirty pens. Very clean and dry. This is the key to healing. First week you will need to unwrap the foot each day and check to see if the infection is returning. If the scab is red or dark in color, it is healing nicely. If the scab turns pussy yellow, you will need to go back in to the hole and repeat the above process. However each day for that first week, you will need to reapply the Neosporin, a small gauze pad and re wrap the foot with clean vet wrap.
At the 2nd week or so, you can check the foot every 2 or 3 days. Continue applying the Neosprin and keep it wrapped. It generally takes 30 days for the scab to fall off. Do not pick or work on it. Let it fall off by itself. You must keep the hole wrapped until the entire healing process is done or more bacteria can enter the hole. One last thing, NEVER use any sticky tape for wrapping such as Duct Tape. These sorts of tape will damage the scales of the leg and cause injury to the bird. Oral antibiotics should only be used if the infection has spread throughout the body and the bird is very sick.
These things can take 4 to 6 weeks to heal, keep them clean, dry and wrapped until scabs fall off.
Keep us posted!
Blue Raptor
Ad Astra Per Aspera
Do you know how to trim toenails? Like, chickens, not people- that would be kinda weird.
- Thread starter
- #26
ChickCrazyWorryWort
Songster
I’ve never done any of there
every time I do I cut the smallest amount off and they still bleed and I can’t get it stop no matter what powder I put on it.Do you know how to trim toenails? Like, chickens, not people- that would be kinda weird.
Blue Raptor
Ad Astra Per Aspera
Yeah, you have to be really careful. I’ve heard of some people candling under the toenail (I’ve never tried it) but you can see if it works! Either a candle or a light under the toenail.
- Thread starter
- #28
ChickCrazyWorryWort
Songster
Ya that doesn’t help when your chickens toenail won’t stop bleeding.
Use a blood stop powder, they constrict blood vessels immediately, quickly stopping bleeding.
- Thread starter
- #30
ChickCrazyWorryWort
Songster
@TwoCrows
Does this look like it’s healing?
Does this look like it’s healing?
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