Scabs On Bottom of Feet?

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ChickenPeep

ChickenPeep

Faith & Feathers
11 Years
May 1, 2011
7,006
113
361
Olathe, Kansas
Hello everyone!

I noticed that all of my (3) chickens have scabs on the bottom of thier feet. They have had them for a while now. They are just circular little scabs on the bottom.

Should I be concerned?
 
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What you have there is the dreaded bumblefoot! Your birds must have stepped on sharp objects like thorns, sharp rocks, pointy screws in the wrong places, got splinters from the roost bar or even having a high roost bar will bruise the feet.

You may end up doing surgeries on these birds feet. If the scabs are really tiny, you can get away with applying some neosporin before roosting time. If they are a bit larger, but not infected, red and swollen, you can apply neosporin and keep the feet wrapped so they can heal. If the feet are all inflammed and infected, you will need to dig it all out of there, apply ointments and keep wrapped til the scab falls off.

For now, I would check them every few days. You can soak their feet in warm epsom salt water for 5 mins each day in hopes of drawing any infection out and aid in some healing.

Bumblefeet gets us all eventually. LOL
 
Oh no!!
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They aren't red at all, they're jut the same color as thier skin.

Help,what should I do? These are pets, not just egglayers. We don't know how to do surgery!
 
Their roost isn't high, and it's covered in carpet (it's amazing that they don't get it dirty!). They don't go out of their coop a lot due to the heat. And there aren't and sharp objects besides rocks that I can think of that they step on.
hu.gif
 
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Here's some pictures.

My Silkie-cross. Both feet look the same.


My Buff/blue silkie. One foot has it, one doesn't.


And my Blue silkie. One foot has it a little, and one a lot.






Please help!
 
I think they all need some surgery. The top one is turning red, which means there is infection going on.

Put together yourself a little tool kit of scapels, dental pics, tweezers, cuticle cutters, etc. Sterilize everything by boiling them for 5 mins, and soaking them in alcohol afterwards. You will need either vet wrap, human grade wrap you can get in all pharmacys or lot of gauze rolls. Preferable some sort of water/poop proof wrap. You will also need epsom salts, maybe some iodine like Betadine, (you can get that also at most pharmacys), rubbing alcohol, empty syringes, neopsorin and prep h for the swelling. Oh, and a big towel.

Soak the birds feet in the warm epsom salt water before hand so they are clean and soft. Wrap the bird up in the towel tighly and lay in your lap. Using your tools, gently remove the scab. You will need to dig out any pus chunks and pus core, if there is one. Sometimes all you get is liquid pus. The gunk in the feet is stringy and gooey and not easy to get out. Keep squeezing, picking and pulling out as much as you can. Go slow so you dont' get too much blood. Run the foot under the water in the sink to help stop the bleeding if it gets bad. Usually they don't bleed really badly when there is infection. You can also squeeze the back of the leg near the joint to pinch off the leg artery.

After you have worked on it as long as you can take it and have gotten all that you can out, irrigate the wound with the iodine or some salt water. You can do this all thru the surgery to keep things clear so you can see what you are doing. When you are done, pack the wound with neosporin and prep h by sticking the tip right down into the foot. Put a piece of gauze over the wound and wrap the foot up. Do not let the foot get wet or dirty. Vet wrap is pretty water proof and I find that the birds can be outside on a damp dirt day with bandages and still stay dry.

Don't wrap too tightly, but tight enough to keep dirt out of the wounds. Feel the toes about 5 mins after wrapping to see that they are warm and not cold. If they are cold, you wrapped too tightly.

Check the feet everyday. If by tomorrow the scab looks blood red in color, then leave the scab alone, apply ointments, and rewrap. If the scab looks pusy, then you will need to go back in. Keep the feet wrapped until the scabs fall off, which can take quite a long time.
 
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How did they get it?!? They are primarily house chickens! They aren't outside all the time! Are you sure? I don't tknow if I could do surgery. They seem fine!
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Could bumblefoot kill them?

he.gif
 
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Infections kill chickens all the time. Humans as well. What your birds basically have is a staph infection. Imagine if you had a puncture wound to your foot and you went outside to the chicken yard in bare feet, with no bandages on your foot. You stepped in dirt, mud, chicken poop and other assorted lovelies. If you stayed out there with the chickens every day for months on end like this, you would end up with a staph infection in your feet. They would not heal and it would either kill you, or you would go permanently lame. That is what is happening to your chickens feet. The infection will eventually work up the leg bones and or go systemic and you will end up putting them down.

I know it seems hard to do surgery. Trust me, I was shocked the first time I had to perform it on my babies. Scary stuff. But you and the chicken will live thru it and you will save their lives. It is a simple procedure and many folks here are doing it daily. Read thru some of the posts here in the archives on doing bumblefoot surgery. Maybe that will ease your mind. At some point in the near future, your birds are going to start limping and be in pain.
 
Thank you for the advice. Is there any non-invasive way to treat it? Do all of them need surgery? Do they freak out during surgery?

Sorry for all the questions. It's just that these are the best pets I've ever had and I want to do the best thing for them. I feel like a bad chicken mom, letting my birdies getting infected wounds.
he.gif
 
You can try amoxicillin - you can order it online from pet/animal sites. I cut open the capsules and sprinkle the medicine on a spoon of yogurt. My birds love yogurt. The only bird I've ever cut on for bumblefoot was a bad case - the area was red/swollen and the bird was favoring a leg. Now if I notice a scabby area, I treat with amoxicillin for a few days....
I will say that two of the scabs in your pic look pretty bad...in that first pic it does look reddish around the scab - is it, or is does the pic make it look that way?
 

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