Preventing and Healing Bumblefoot in Chickens
On day 12 and 13 the bandage was no longer on her foot in the morning. The bits of bandage had become a keep-away toy for the rest of the flock. The scabs shows healing a little more each day so the decision was made to continue soaking, once or twice daily as time permits, forgo the bandages and allow the air to speed the healing.
Dottie had always been shy and standoff-ish, but after surgery and healing soaks, she has become a mellow and docile hen. She no longer has to be wrapped completely in the towel and prefers her head out during the soaking. Massaging the feet in the warm water makes her very relaxed. The following pictures are on day 17. The reddish spots are from the betadine soak. Notice how the healing skin is pink around the scab on the picture on the left. The scab is drying out and shrinking each day. The picture on the right shows the top of the foot. The circled incision has healed and the other one continues to improve. I can feel a bumble about the size of a pea under the scab on the right but we are choosing to wait until the foot heals more before opening it back up. The feet are soaked and massaged twice a day in warm water with ebsom salt and betadine. Near the end of October I stopped soaking her foot due to cold weather. The small bumble on the top of the foot developed a scab and popped out on its own. By December the pads on the bottom of the foot had healed and Dottie's foot pads have returned to normal. Bumble foot resolved. Lowering the roosts was instrumental to prevent future infections.
Update 2016. Dottie the chicken has never had a re-occurence and is leading the happy life of a pet chicken. At six years old she is still laying us some eggs. |
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All content and images original works of kittycooks. Copyright 2011