Vet suggestion for non-invasive bumblefoot cure

[tamtam84]

Thanks for the quick replies, PhilErvin and chickenlady08! Today my husband suggested that we go ahead and try to get the pus/bumble out of Buttercup's foot and I tend to agree. I really wanted to fix her foot without having to cut into it, but sounds like that will work faster and be better in the long run.

Couple of questions:

1) If I do lance the top of her foot, is it still safe to use the Tricide-Neo? I think I read somewhere on here that you should not use it on open cuts.

2) Since the plug on the bottom of her foot is relatively small, should I just leave it alone and lance the top of the foot? Seems like since that's where the swelling is, I should focus on that area. But should I also cut the plug out?

3) Would it be ok to let her back outside after doing the surgery if I wrap her foot up really well? I'd rather not separate her from the other girls, but I also don't want her to get her foot dirty and infected again.

Thanks sooooo much for any advice! I don't know what I'd do without this forum! You all are the best!

 

[PhilErvin]

I used the drawing salve to prevent lancing, I'm kind of squeemish that way.
I don't know about the Tricide-Neo in the open sore but when you soak Koi in it it is for sores and the sores on the Koi seem to be open.
After we got the hard pus ball out we soaked her again in the Epson salt just to clean it out.

 

[Kazzandra]

Quote:
I still say that isn't too bad for Tricide-Neo to work. Chickenlady08 admits to having no experience with the Tricide-Neo, and while it does take a bit to work, it will work if you're following the directions.

I had my vet tell me that my rooster would lose toes, no doubt. He told me that cutting into the feet at that stage was very difficult, as it was a hard marble, and almost always results in reinfection(s). It was really, really bad, but then again, only one infection site on each foot, unlike your Buttercup. Are you doing it everyday? I would if I was worried about it getting worse, instead of every other. Are you doing the whole time-- five to seven minutes? Ramp it up with some neosporin and preparation h after you've soaked it. Preparation H does a good job at getting rid of the swelling as the Tricide takes care of the infection, so that the Tricide can get into the infection the next time you soak.

By the way, my chickens are still wearing Nettie's shoes, but bumblefoot symptoms are gone, except for one tiny scab on my rooster's foot. Swelling is gone. I just put a little Neosporin in the shoes every few days. So-- it looks like you can beat bumblefoot down, but it does take a bit.

 

[cocosandy]

as someone who has done a number of these surgeries AND used the soak treatment, I can say that in this case it looks to me like you must cut the thing out if you want to save the bird.
This is what I suggest.
Have on hand: rubber gloves, neosporin, gauze, vet wrap, a good blade like a clean xacto....good tweezers and the like for scraping because you need to get it all....I use a magnifying glass headset because I have old eyes;-)...good lighting is a must!
The infection looks so advanced that you may just get it to pop out. What you do is this: wrap her in a towel (not too tight but if you lightly cover her head she way lay still.) and lay her on the side of the sink with her feet in a position so that you can run the water over them.
run warm water over them and massage the infection as much as possible and then loosen the plug and try to pop it out. If you massage the infection vigorously most of it should come out through the hole. Chicken pus is like cottage cheese or harder, and you need to sort of rub it between your fingers because there is a hard "bumble" in there that you need to get out or the infeciton will not get better.
This is Staph so wear gloves and wash well...dont rub into your eyes or any open cuts on yourself.
I am so NOT careful myself, but have done this alot...just be careful because you can get staph and its hard to treat.
So you need to get all the pus out and scrape it out so that its like an open hole...it will bleed alot and thats where the faucet comes in handy...keep massaging and keep trying to move the stuff out.
Don't lance the top unless you have to. I have only heard of that if the bumble is in way deep and you need ot cut it out the top, but there is not reason that you cant get in there and scrape the whole thing out with tweezers.
I use Bactine spray alot because it kills pain and it disinfects...so all along I use it...but chickens dont perceive pain the same way we do...so as much as you may need someone to hold her, she should just lay there if she is wrapped and her head is lightly covered. Ive never had a chicken "fight" this...and i just had to do a crop surgery on a hen, who also just lay there...
but then, I use Bactine which numbs a bit but isnt a "caine"....and Ive foudn that even a little "caine" so long as its not injected into the bird is OK...like if you put a little anbesol on it....

anyway, Ive found that the fish antibiotic soak is helpful, and Ive done it on an open bumble, but only a small one. The one pictured is very advanced an dmay be already in the chickens ligaments. The problem with not cutting it out right away is that it does get all involved wiht the joints and by that time its hard to treat it ...
Ive injected Tylan 50 into the leg above the infection and I do think that helps. You can order that from randall burkey and syringes as well. They have a dosage chart.

Anyway, hollow the thing out aggressively and then pack it with neosporin and put gauze on it..then wrap it with vet wrap.
Put the chicken in a rabbit cage or anything that has a pull out tray so that you can transfer it into and out of the coop and it wont be standing in poo...you can see if its eating and all.
What I do is keep the chicken with the flock but move it in a rabbit cage with food and water dishes in and out, day and night...in winter I might bring one inside the basement or mud room, but they do OK in a cage.
Its just important to make sure that the cage has a mesh bottom so the bird is not standing in poo. you need to keep it dry or you have to change it, so you want her off the floor...there are shoes you can get but I would still cage her for a few days just to track what shes eating and drinking and all...you can put some antibiotics in her water also, if you dont do shots. I dont hesitate to put them on shots of Tylan for this, but its questionable if it works. I believe that it has to be cut out. A vet can do it but it may be expensive.

Change the bandages after a few days to see if pus is gathering again. If you didn't get the bumble you have ot go back in.
My first couple of times I was very scared of the blood and all, and I didn't go in aggressively enough to get the bumble and had to go back.

My rule of thumb is that if the bumble is just starting, like a little black thing, I do the neo soaks, but if there is swelling, I cut it out...
Look at the threads about bumblefoot surgery and the pictures of bumblefoot in the search engine here...I have some pics on my meetup site in the photos section too.

..and for the guy who said that chickens might be an expensive endeavor; well, they are...and if they are your pets, then treat them either through the vet or treat yourself. If they are for food production and just that then cull the bumblefoot ones when the feet get painful or they stop laying. Any living thing is expensive to keep from time to time...to cut corners and to keep them in a shed, away from staph (which is everywhere,) and on antibiotics, is to create the same food that you can get at any supermarket.
I never thought chickens would be cheap to keep, and they have proven to cause expense all along the way...but they also have brought great joy and good food via eggs to my life...so its worth it.
My vet doesn't even treat chickens and an avian vet would cost way more than I could spend on a chicken. Expensive large parrots can get bumblefoot and in the case of a bird worth thousands of dollars, I would say that its worth it to go to the vet....the rest is just in how much the bird means to you emotionally and also if you are too squeamish to fully do the surgery.
My rule of thumb is the quality of life of the chicken and am I causing it more harm and keeping it from "being a chicken"...they can put up with the surgery but then its important to get it back with the flock and being a chicken.


good luck.

 

[schellie69]

Quote:
I have a question what happens if you notice red streaks going up the leg? We had a chicken this happened to us we made the hard decision to cull her. the soak and surgeries did not work we never found the bumble part. even when they did the dissection they could not find it. the infection was all the way to her knee joint. Her quality of life was suffering this is why we choose to cull her. It still hurts but the 3 vets we talked to did not hold out much hope that antibiotics would really help.

 

[Zenbirder]

I have my first case of bumblefoot, and am just now reading all this info. No vet in our area will see a chicken, so I am on my own. Two thoughts I would appreciate any feedback on:

If the staph is really cold susceptible, has anyone tried cryogenic wart removers? It seems you could get really accurate freezing of the problem area?

Has anyone tried tree tea oil?

 

[cocosandy]

Once it gets to stage 4, which is ligament involvement and its up the leg etc..its pretty much over...the bird can live just fine till it seems to be in pain.
But I wouldn't bother treating it.
The bumble has to come out...tea tree oil is a topical antiseptic but does nothing for this...if you just caught it and its a small callus on the footbed, then try to soaks with the koi antibiotic, but really your best bet is to get it early, massage it, and get th eplug out and any pus around it.
On thing about catching it early is that you can just pop it out and bandage it up and it should get better.
In my experience its all of these alternative cures that cause it to go out of control because its not gonna get better till the bumble comes out.
The anecdotal stories here about the koi treatment is that the antibiotic (which is so strong that you really have to follow instructions and wear gloves) causes the bumble to encapsulate and come out.
it only works if you do it early.
All these other things just allow the infection to grow and spread. the point is to stop it and the only way to do that is to get the bumble out. If the koi antibiotic soaks work and you're very careful of that stuff (because its seriously strong) then great...and I found it useful on a duck recently...but only after surgery in which ahappychick and I popped out the bumble. and it wasn't a big deal at all. we cut around it and it popped out under the faucet, and then put blu-coat because you cant bandage a duck.

It becomes a big deal when you let it fester. My only cases that I haven't been able to cure somehow were when I wasn't paying attention in my early chicken keeping days, and the swelling was already all over, and when I haven't treated aggressively and gotten the bumble out. Otherwise, I try to check their feet as much as I can...and Im checking for mites too...and if I catch one early, I get it out immediately.
usually the bumble is right there if you catch it very early...and that's that...it heals up.
Chickens dont experience pain the same way we do...usually they will just lay still and let you take it out...so if its blood squeamishness thats one thing; if you're worried that you are somehow hurting the bird, its projection. They do feel pain but Im convinced that its different...and that the pain of an impacted crop or an out of control bumblefooot is worse than the little slit to fix it.
If your bird is struggling and screaming then something else is wrong...
This is just my opinion but Ive had some experience with this and Ive overcome alot of my own reticence about "hurting" my beloved pets.
you draw your own line, but arguably, it could be worse on the bird to do months of soaks while the infection travels into the ligaments and joints.

Oh, and the freezing thing...I think you would have to freeze the chicken's foot off in order to cure bumblefoot like a wart.
you could try, but I personally would cut the bumble out first..

 

[tamtam84]

Lots of good advice everyone...thanks!

So far, I have done 5 treatments of the Tricide-Neo soak on my 3 girls. After I took the vetwrap off one of my girls right before I did the 5th soak, I noticed her scab was loosened enough that I was able to basically pull it right off. There wasn't much pus or anything that I could see and she had hardly any swelling at all, so I went ahead and did the soak and put a bunch of Neosporin on the bottom of the foot with gauze and vetwrap. I'll keep doing the treatments on her and hopefully soon it'll be cleared up.

I have another girl whose scab is also loosening a lot and is close to being able to be pulled off easily. Not sure if it's the Tricide-Neo working or just the fact that I'm soaking the scab in a water solution that is making it loosen up and start to pull away from the foot. Makes me wonder if I would have had the same results with just a soak in warm epsom salt water without buying the Tricide-Neo powder. Oh well. Hopefully today I'll be able to get the scab off of her foot easily too. She has very little swelling so I shouldn't have to poke and prod around too much. *fingers crossed*

My Buttercup is the worst case out of the 3 (you can see the pics of the swelling on her foot in my last post on this topic). We did actually cut a small incision on the top of her foot a few days ago and squeezed a bit of pus out and got a little bumble out that looked kind of like a small kernel of corn. The swelling is still there so obviously we didn't get it all out. Her scab on the bottom of her foot is not loosening at all so we may have to end up cutting it out with the x-acto knife.

Such a crazy ordeal, but my girls are worth it!!!

 

[schellie69]

I am still new to chicken keeping this is my 1st year so I have learned a lot, The reason we decided to cull was due to the fact that she was limping laying down a lot not walking with the flock and pretty much just sat around she was not even dust bathing due to her foot being so bad like I said they found the infection under her pad toward the knee joint not at the bottom of the pad I am not sure if I could have gotten all the infection out even soaking. I hate that she is gone but we did learn a lot and she had a small bumblefoot on her other foot my DH now knows what a regular bumblefoot looks like so if any of the other girls needs surgery we can do that. I was told to wait until I see swelling and limping to do the surgery because sometimes the black could be just a callus is this true should I remove even the very tiny black dot on the foot? So far all my other girls are doing great no problems we do check feet more often now since this happened I have learned so much since starting this flock a year ago.

 

[PoultryPedia]

schellie69--If a chicken has a small dark spot that concerns you, you can often snip it out with fingernail clippers without really getting into live skin.

On another note: what has the experience of people here been with using Tea Tree Oil with chickens? I have heard from one person that they thought it was not safe.