Arg - it's not just Dimple with a hurt foot now! One of my two actual green eggers, Hobbit, turned up with double bumble feeties today. It was hot so no one wanted to stay on my lap for long except for Hobbit - she wanted to burrow into my arm pit and stay there both yesterday and today. Yesterday she laid some kind of godzilla egg, so I thought that was the issue, but she was still at it today so clearly something else was wrong. Took me a bit to figure out it was her feet since there wasn't much to go on visually. Again I think I caught it early - no redness, minimal swelling, small scabs, and everything was pretty near the surface and easy to remove. So...miss Hobbit will be sporting two leg warmers for a bit and I'll have to get quite a bit more of that wrap stuff.
Then I also discovered two extremely small, fully healed bumbles on Little Fuzzy, one of my barred girls who was originally the slow-developing runt of the bunch (and is now enormous - she should actually be called Big Fat Fuzzy these days but that's another topic lol). I don't need to treat her feet because the scabs just popped off, tiny kernels intact on it, leaving smooth healthy-looking skin undereath. So I just bluekoted the area to be safe and otherwise left it alone. However, that clearly meant there is/was something IN the enclosure causing foot issues to have 3 birds with this issue at roughly the same time and zero foot issues previously. There may be others in the flock with extremely minor issues I haven't found yet - I haven't been able to check everyone with the heat being what it is right now.
My first guess for a bumble culprit was the slanted chunnel connecting the run to the shed coop. The grippy strips I had installed last year didn't do well over the winter and the chickens had been peeling them away slowly. I don't think those strips specifically were causing the bumbles, since they aren't sharp or splitery, but by being torn away it was exposing the plywood more - and there was an edge at the very top of the ramp that had become exposed and was looking splintery in a couple places. So I went out in the heat and installed a rubber mat over the whole ramp and wrapped the mat over that edge. The rubber is kind of soft so I don't know how well it will hold up over time to chicken claws, but it should do for this summer at least.
My second guess for bumbles is unfortunately HWC on the run doors. Not because there are any exposed sharp nibs on the inside - I was very careful about that. Rather, my birds crush against the doors every morning and actually try to climb the mesh with their feet when they see me coming. Dimple is the worst offender for regular climbing attempts, but pretty much all of them do it at least occasionally. That situation will be harder to fix - I'll have to put something on the bottom part of the door or something if that's what the issue is rather than the ramp. I'm not sure what to put there; maybe as a temorary fix I can just use some of the floor protector roll I used for wind breaks over the winter.
goes with her dancing habits!
