Chicken with Bumblefoot - warning not for the squeamish

What the heck is wrong with my chickens foot?! Is she growing a new toe, why is she limping, hmm she's holding her foot up, Why?

I spend time with my chickens each day but I obviously don't pay attention to their feet (lesson learned). All the girls seem happy and healthy but I had no idea something was festering on the bottom of Dragon's foot.

Dragon is a year and half old Red Star hen.
A few days ago I was asking my self the very questions above.
Upon close inspection of her foot I knew something was wrong but what and how do I fix it without spending a fortune taking her to a vet.

Unfortunately I did not take a picture of her foot, I really wish I had because I know it would be helpful to other backyard chicken friends.

Here's what I saw:
Dragon had a large scab like abscess on the top of her foot and her foot was swollen.
On the bottom of the foot was the source of her discomfort, a 3mm sized black flat scab.

My first instinct was wanting to pick off the abscess, which is what I ended up doing but not until I had my Country Girl-friend take a look.

I knew this wasn't something I should jump into on my own.

When Country Girl first saw Dragon she said "Why didn't you take care of this a long time ago"

Yes, I'm a bad chicken mommy, I didn't notice it.
Really, I feel awful saying that.

Country Girls instinct was the same as mine, she yanked the abscess off.
Maybe we should have sanitized the affected area first but we Are in the country

Ok, YOU should clean the chickens foot prior to performing this surgery that ended up taking almost 2 hours!

my disclaimer
This entire procedure was a learn as you go experience for me.
If you find yourself in this same position I suggest you follow your chicken mommy (or daddy) instincts and do what is best for you and your chicken. You will find a lot of helpful information about bumblefoot on the web, research before you start or as you go along, like I did.

supplies needed:
towel
paper towels
gauze
vet wrap
tweezers
scalpel or needle
warm water
epsom salt
antibiotic ointment/solution (i.e. neosporin, betadin)

Here's the nitty gritty of what we did and some really gross pictures for those of you that like that stuff.

* to help the chicken relax, wrap her in a towel covering her head and body
leaving the injured foot exposed
* lay her on her side on your lap

* soak chickens foot in a warm water epsom salt solution
* remove abscess from top of foot
* puss may be under the abscess or it may be deeper but this is only the beginning
* using a sanitized scalpel or needle start to remove the bumble from the bottom of the foot
* carefully scrap away the hard bumble from the good tissue
* use tweezers as you go along to pull out chunks

the first part of this will be hard and scab like, under that
is a condensed puss root (I have no other better way to describe it)
you need to remove all of this and yes it is deep and there can be a lot



Several of these condensed puss roots were removed.
Each time one was removed you could feel her foot pad getting softer.
We knew we were getting the source of her problem out.









Like I mentioned it took a long time to do this.
We soaked her foot a couple times to help soften the bumble during the procedure.
In my opinion, Dragon was relaxed, she rarely tried to pull her foot away.

When we were sure we removed all the bumble we soaked her foot in another epsom salt bath and dried her foot completely.
The only ointment I had was neosporin.
We applied a generous amount to the top and bottom of her foot.
I also did not have vet wrap so I used gauze and medical/bandage tape to wrap her foot.

look at this great wrap job



Here she was right after the surgery







Here she is the morning after



This morning I removed the her gauze bandage





I put betadine on the top and bottom of the wound.
Put new gauze on the wounds and wrapped the foot in vet wrap.



My goal is to keep her foot dry and clean.
I will change her bandage at least once a day and apply antibiotic ointment or solution to fend off bacteria and help her foot heal.

**What I've learned
bumblefoot is caused by small wounds or injury to the chickens foot. This could be from stepping on a thorn or nail also from a chicken jumping off high places causing bruising that can result in the bumble. The bumble starts out on the bottom of the foot eventually causing swelling.
Left un-noticed (like mine) an abscess will form on the top of the foot, usually between the toes. If the bumble is not treated the chicken may eventually die from infection.
After treating the abscess it can return if the entire bumble has not been removed.

Visit my flickr account for additional photos and check back for bumble foot updates.

~Patricia

The Chicken Show - Martha Style

Don't Miss It!
Tune into this Friday's episode of the Martha Stewart Show, which is all about backyard chickens. The show features special guest Traci Torres, My Pet Chicken founder, talking about how to care for baby chicks.

I'm a big fan of My Pet Chicken, I purchased my first group of chickens from them last spring. They were so helpful on the phone...I called them several times before my baby chicks arrived in the mail, you know with all those nervous 1st time mom questions ;)

Martha is also going to share yummy eggs recipes, because we all know for how much I Love my chickens, I Love eating their eggs even more!

and Egg Crafts!!!

~Patricia

New Arrivals

Picked up this morning at our local American Farm and Feed Store
4 day old baby chicks
2) Rhode Island Reds
2) Barred Rock
2) Ameraucana
2) Black Giant (aka Jersey Black Giants)

New breeds to our chicken family are the Ameraucana, which are known for laying blue eggs and the Black Jersey Giant, as it's name implies it's large/heavy and can grow up to 11 pounds!



We are using the brooder that we made last year. It's a large plastic storage container with the center of the lid cut out and replaced with chicken wire.
Normally I use 2 heat lamps (red bulbs) but one blew. For now I added the blanket to reduce heat loss.

The storage container makes for easy cleaning.
While the chicks are small I line the bottom with newpaper and paper towels, it gives the chicks a solid surface to walk on to help build strong legs. At this age I clean out the brooder several times a day by rolling up the dirty papers and adding new.

When the chicks are larger I will add pine shaving to the bottom. Once a day I will move the chicks to a box and dump out the pine shavings, rinse and dry the container and add fresh shavings.

~Patricia

My Peeps have arrived!!

We ordered 12 baby chicks 2 months ago from My Pet Chicken.
Of course I wanted them right away, but I chose 6 different varieties
(Australorp, White Leghorn, Plymouth Rock, Buff Orpington, Red Star & Rhode Island Reds) it took some time to get hatch dates close together. 2 months is long time to wait (well, for me), you'd think a person waiting that long would be more then prepared for the arrival.
Not me, I'm never ready for anything.
Luck for me the people in my life know this and expect nothing more ;)

My chicks were due to arrive in the mail today.
Yesterday, I planned to run errands gathering a few supplies I was missing.
That was the plan, but here's what happened...

Picked Bella up from preschool at Noon, came home to make her lunch before heading out to run errands.
12:30 the phone rings...United States Gov...hmmm, guess I should answer that.
The man on the phone said my box of chicks just arrived at the PO.
While he was saying some non important things or at least I wasn't paying attention, I could hear Chirping in the background.
My stomach started feeling sick, I hung up so fast I have no idea what I said to him.
Except the obvious, I'm on my way!

I ran around the house freaking out, in panic mode that the brooder wasn't setup, I didn't have the right heat lamp and what I thought was a chick waterer, wasn't!

I called Dave at work rambling about having to go to the pet store, get to the PO asap to get the chicks home to give them water before they DIE!
(This post is going to have lots of "!")

During all the chaos Bella was following behind me telling me not to worry because the chicks weren't coming until tomorrow.
(children, like animals instinctively know when you are loosing your mind and they need to step in and comfort you...don't you love that)

Bella helped me set up the brooder, prepare sugar water and fill the feeder.
We jumped in the car and raced to the PO, while Dave kindly ran my errands.
(he could have saved me some stress by doing that days ago, LOL)

We cut in front of the Huge line at the PO and excitedly told the clerk that baby chicks were waiting for us. Bella was jumping up and down, clapping and squealing with delight.
The people in line were laughing, either out of excitement for us or that we must be crazy.

No lie, I was giddy when I saw the box.
We carefully carried our precious babies to the car.
Took a second to snap a quick pic, of course

Bella made the calls to announce the arrival of grand babies/nieces to our family.
I concentrated on safely driving the chicks home.

We opened the box to lively chirping chicks eager to get out.
What a relief all 12 were alive!

(look Dave saved the day, just in time with the right waterer, but that long feeder had to go!)
I carefully took each one out of the box and dipped there beaks in the water.
The chicks were much larger and hardier than I thought they would be.
Really what do I know, I had never seen a baby chick before.

Proud Papa and Chick Sis admiring our new additions to the family


Crazy Chicken Brother!
This kid has loved and talked about chickens his entire life.
Why, I don't know?
The speech he did a few weeks ago was even about Chickens!
That turned out to be a great way for us to research chicken care.
(I'll have to post his fabulous speech)


Cat introductions
(btw, that is our new kitten, Honey)


Sleeping fluff balls or are they dead!
No they aren't, just looks that way ;)

Brooder setup
I can't maintain a high enough temperature for the chicks in our house.
It's 85-90 degrees outside, so during the day the brooder will be on the porch with the heat lamps.

121 pictures later, the chicks have made it through their first day/night at home :)

We are all chicken smitten
~Patricia