How I Cure Bumblefoot and Other Infections (When All Else Fails)

*Our sweet girl that suffered from multiple, recurring cases of bumblefoot, until we found a treatment that finally worked.*

It feels somewhat inevitable that if you own poultry for any length of time, you’ll eventually have to deal with one of the most common poultry ailments… bumblefoot.

It’s an extremely common affliction among backyard poultry—especially waterfowl, as it only requires a small cut in the foot to become infected with Staph. aureus, resulting in the swollen, painful “bumble” of infection that causes the characteristic limping or lameness. Left untreated, bumblefoot not only becomes cripplingly painful for the bird, but can potentially become systemic, and ultimately kill the poor creature.

Bumblefoot is fairly easily diagnosed by observing a bird limping or laying down more often than usual, combined with a characteristic swelling on the foot, often with a black scab over the center of the infection.

Part of the reason that these wicked, little Staph infections are such a common occurrence in backyard flocks is simply due to the nature of birds, and not necessarily due to poor husbandry practices on the part of the owners. Chickens love to dig in, and jump off of, places that they shouldn’t, resulting in frequent tiny cuts that are all susceptible to infection. Ducks (and all waterfowl, in general, in my experience) have delicate, injury-prone feet. Combine that with Staph being absolutely everywhere, and it’s easy to envision a bird with an even slightly compromised immune system developing several bumbles over the course of its life.

It seems like my bird has bumblefoot…now what?

Our first course of action when we see a bird limping or otherwise having difficulty getting around is to catch the bird and examine the feet for possible reasons for the bird’s behavior other than bumblefoot. If the presence of infection is evident, the bird is immediately removed from the flock and isolated to one of our “hospital tractors” (the exact same design as our Quail Tractors, in fact!) while we prepare for treatment.

The next step after confirming the infection and isolating the bird, is to do an epsom salt soak on the foot by either filling a bucket (or even our bathtub!) with warm water and epsom salt and allowing the foot to soak for at least 30 minutes. This is, obviously, much easier with waterfowl who enjoy a nice bath…chickens will need a bit more coaxing…well, manhandling, really, to keep their foot submerged in the water. The point of the bath is to soften the skin, and some report using repeated epsom salt soaks as the only means necessary to draw out the infection. I’ve never had luck eliminating bumblefoot from soaks alone, and if you’re dealing with a large bumble (and, so, likely, an advanced infection), then after the initial soak, I highly recommend proceeding to the next step.

Surgery Prep

It sounds like a scary word, but this isn’t as complicate as it sounds. Yes, you’re going to be cutting into your bird’s foot, but this is how you’ll remove the “kernel” of infection that is causing your bird so much pain. You, unfortunately, can’t anesthetize the bird. However, in previously softening the skin, cutting will be a much smoother process, and when properly restrained, the birds actually stay very calm as you work on them and feel such massive relief from it, that in our eyes, it is always worth it.

The Tools you’ll need:

Scalpel
Large towel for restraint
Extra towels, paper, etc. to line your work surfaces
PPE (gloves, glasses or other eye covering, mouth covering (you do NOT want the bacteria from the wound getting into your eyes, nose, or mouth, of course!!)
Betadine (or other iodine solution)
Gauze
VetWrap (and scissors to cut!)
Antibiotic Ointment
(Optional) Popsicle sticks or Waterfowl Neoprene shoe (you might need these items only for waterfowl feet that aren’t as easily bandaged as other poultry)
Chlorhexidine (An excellent antibacterial solution for wound and work-site cleanup. I like to use this concentrated solution, diluted into a quart-sized spray bottle at a dilution of ½ TBSP per Quart. If you want to make a larger batch, use 2 TBSP per Gallon.)

The Procedure

We find it easiest to work with the bird cradled in a lap. So the person holding the bird (which can be the same person as the surgeon or an extra helper) will drape a large towel over their legs, and don their gloves and eye and face protection. We like to have the scalpel, bottle of Chlorhexidine, Iodine Solution, and a few gauze pads laid out on one side of the person, and the antibiotic ointment, extra gauze, VetWrap, and optional popsicle sticks land out on the other side.

With a freshly-soaked foot, take your bird, with it’s wings held securely against it’s body and flip it onto it’s back, in your lap, using the large bath towel to wrap your bird snugly (but not too tight!), leaving only their head and injured foot exposed.

We use the chlorhexidine spray liberally to clean the foot very well, using gauze pads to remove any debris that didn’t come off in the soak. You might even find that you’re able to peel away a bit of the scab at this point. If not, that’s ok.

Wipe down the foot with a gauze pad soaked in iodine, before using the scalpel to cut the scab away from the foot. I’ve seen this done a few ways…commonly these two:

-some cut around the perimeter of the scab, slightly down into the foot, and angled in towards the center of the scab.

-some simply make an incision across or next to the scab.

I prefer the former, and my husband, Ben, the latter. In the first version, I think it’s easier to then apply pressure to the edges of the loosened scab to expel the kernel (attached to the scab) out of the foot (you better be wearing that face protection here, just in case!!). This does leave a larger hole to heal up, but it makes it much easier to see that you’ve removed all of the infection, and I think it pops out easier (yes, this is sort of like popping the world’s largest and most disgusting zit…so gross!) Ben prefers to make a smaller incision, and squeeze the kernel out of that, and as long as you actually get everything out, this does seem to speed the time it takes to heal.

In either scenario, after squeezing the pus from the incision, we like to flush the wound with a large mount of iodine, followed by a few sprays of chlorhexidine. We then pack the wound with antibiotic ointment (honey can also be helpful here) and then cover with a few gauze pads and secure with VetWrap. If you’ve never used VetWrap, it is a bandage that adheres only to itself, and so you want to wrap it around itself a few times to make sure it holds. On chickens, we like to cut strips of the bandage in half (about 1” wide), so that they’re thinner, and can be woven around the chicken’s foot a few times, weaving around the toes. With waterfowl, there are no spaces between the toes to weave through, which means that if you simply wrap around the foot, you’ll end up crushing the toes together, giving the bird a club foot. This is where you can use popsicle sticks (cut to size) to fashion a splint to keep the toes spread, while wrapping the foot. I’ll be honest…it can be a difficult task to get it right. Another, more expensive option is the Neoprene duck shoe, linked to above, to be used in place of the VetWrap. (Note that that particular company has very long production times—we’re talking many months—so if you think you’ll ever want to use the shoes, it’s best to order now and have them on hand, just in case. Also, they are not an affiliate link—just a neat solution that I found to the difficult task of bandaging a duck foot.)

Recovery

After surgery is complete, the bird goes back to the Hospital Tractor. They’re going to remain there for about a week, so that they can be frequently moved to new ground to avoid them standing in poop. This also keeps waterfowl from swimming, which is also important. They’re also much easier to catch for daily exams and foot cleaning/re-bandaging when isolated to a tractor. Here you’re really just watching to make sure that the infection was eliminated, and the wound is healing. Usually within a week, the incision is healed enough that it’s safe to return the bird to the flock. Use your judgement, and know that returning a bird too early could reintroduce the wound to infection.

What to do when all of the above fails…

My personal take on a controversial topic:

If you were to have taken your bird to a vet, after performing the necessary surgery, they would have prescribed a course of antibiotics to wipe out any remnants of infection (and also prevent new infection from taking hold) while the bird recovered. Obviously, antibiotic use in animals isn’t to be taken lightly or used as a preventative measure, and certainly not used as an excuse for poor sanitation or living conditions that promote disease—especially with animals involved in the food chain. You not only have to worry about increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria, which is bad enough in itself, but also about medication residues in food products like milk, eggs, and meat. For years, the food industry abused the utility of antibiotics, feeding them at low doses for the entire life of the animal—leading to millions of people consuming these medications with each meal they ate. Thanks to this history of misuse, medicating an animal has now become a fairly controversial topic.

Basic animal welfare principle states that any suffering animal requires swift and proper treatment. Natural and homeopathic remedies are preferred, but when conventional medicine is necessary to save a life, it should be administered…and I agree with that philosophy wholeheartedly. Fortunately, there are safe and responsible ways to use antibiotics with animals, including those involved in food production. Responsible antibiotic use starts with using discretion on when to actually utilize them, and continues with allowing for proper withdrawal periods before allowing the animal to be returned to its food production role of meat, eggs, or milk.

The most effective way we’ve found to use antibiotics to cure infections…

If you’ve tried foot soaks and surgery, and your bird is still showing clear signs of bumblefoot recurring shortly after, then treating the infection with antibiotics is absolutely necessary if you do not want to cull the bird. Ideally, you would start administering the antibiotics immediately after surgery. However, if you had previously been trying to avoid their use (for any number of understandable reasons), now’s the time to incorporate them into the treatment plan. If your birds are more pets than food producers, you can actually pretty effectively treat bumblefoot solely by administering antibiotics, and avoiding the soaks and surgery all together. The ultimate course of action we all take is unique, and entirely up to the individual person responsible for their own animal’s welfare.

The antibiotic that we’re going to use to treat the bumble foot is Oxytetracycline Hydrochloride. Oxytetracycline is a medication used to treat Staph infections in animals. It’s effective against both gram positive and gram negative bacteria, as well as some protozoa (in fact, it’s effective against Cocci!—but that’s for another post). It’s a drug that is somewhat poorly absorbed IM (via injection), and so is best administered orally. Obviously, to deliver the drug orally, it must either be added to the food or water. Unfortunately, most oral medications and feeds for poultry have become illegal due to the afore-mentioned abuse by the food industry. It’s sometimes possible to find a medication that can be added to drinking water, but with the downside of it quickly degrading in the aqueous environment or precipitating out of solution. Also, overall, it’s very hard to judge approximately how much the bird is actually consuming of the medicated water, and it must be consumed within 24 hours.

So you’re probably wondering—how’s a poultry-enthusiast like myself supposed to treat a sick bird when the best forms of treatment have been made very hard to come by? I found myself in this same difficult situation when one of my ducks managed to cut herself on an old piece of metal that had worked its way up through the ground, and after two attempts at surgery, her foot was only getting worse. She needed effective antibiotics, or we were going to be forced to euthanize her for her own sake. It was honestly heartbreaking to have her away from her beloved flock and pond, and having no clue if we’d ever be able to let her return. The answer to my problem came to me from a very trusted source in the (believe it or not) aquaculture industry…specifically, my dad! I should have known he could help—he always does!

My father, Steve, has worked (full-time, professionally) for many decades as a world-renowned breeder of ornamental, freshwater Angelfish, and he knows the ins and outs of treating every single disease that afflicts fish. He even sells a line of medicated fish flakes to make treatment even easier. When I told him about my poor, struggling duck, he immediately suggested, “why don’t you try one of our medicated flakes?”…huh—I had never considered using a fish food for my flock, but…well, long story short, I did, and IT WORKED!

Using Antibiotic Fish Food to treat infections in poultry

Many of the medications formerly used to treat poultry are still currently available to treat diseases in ornamental fish, and these medicated fish flakes work extremely well AND are palatable to poultry (which is important since medication won’t work if you can’t get it inside of your bird). This link will take you to the exact Medicated Fish Food that we use. It is the “Angels Plus Antibiotic II Fish Flake” (the orange version with Oxytetracycline hydrochloride). I’m going to be very honest with you—yes, this is my father’s company. Yes, he makes money selling this fish food. However, I would absolutely NEVER recommend this product to anyone if I didn’t feel it would be a valuable life-saving tool to have in your poultry-health arsenal. But, honestly, I think it might be one of the most useful products for the backyard poultry-keeper, and even the full-scale farmer to have on hand. It saved one of my ducks that was days away from death, simply because I was lucky enough to have someone in the industry suggest it to me as a possible course of action. I would have never thought of it, otherwise.

I have now used it for both the duck that I just told you about, as well as a gosling that arrived on the farm, who was clearly already ill with something. From the start, she was half the size of her siblings…and with time, went downhill progressively. She eventually developed bumblefoot in both feet, as well as conjunctivitis in her eyes. She was losing both weight and feathers, and I was literally watching her fade in front of my eyes. If you know how affectionate goslings are with their humans, then you know how crushing of an experience this was. I assumed that the bacterial infections that were developing were only secondary symptoms of something larger that was going on with her, however, I knew that if I at least tried the antibiotic on her, it might alleviate the infections enough for her to have the strength to battle whatever else was going on. I treated her right around 8 weeks old, and I’m happy to say that by the end of her treatment she had perked right up and all signs of infection had healed, and although she is still much smaller than her flock mates, she is putting on weight (and feathers, finally!) and is a very happy, little goose!

How to administer the feed

The beauty of this flake is that it’s formulated to properly dose an animal when fed free-choice, as much as the animal will eat. This means that for both the duck and the gosling, they were each isolated in a hospital tractor so that they were the only ones with access to the medication, and I was able to tell if they had eaten any or not. Because it’s a medicated version of regular fish food (meant for everyday nutritional needs of a fish) the flake itself contains plenty of protein in the form of fish meal, as well as fats, vitamins and minerals. I chose to feed it exclusively to my birds (no poultry pellets) to be sure that they maximized their consumption of the medication, although I don’t know if that was necessary to do. Neither lost weight or seemed to suffer any detrimental effects—in fact, they LOVED eating the mostly fish protein-based food. I chose to treat free-choice, for 10 full days, although I saw improvements in both birds after only just a couple. In fact, the duck, who had not laid an egg for over two weeks as we repeatedly tried to treat her with soaks and surgeries, started laying again a few days after starting the flake! These eggs had to be disposed of, though, as they likely contained traces of the medication. I used somewhere right around a pound of flake to treat both birds.

Withdrawal Times

At the end of the ten days of treatment, the gosling was returned to the flock. She was young and no where near egg or meat producing age, and so was simply allowed to return to life as normal. The duck, however, was a member of our laying flock, and I needed to be sure that the drug was completely out of her system before she was allowed to go back in with everyone else, where I would be unable to tell her eggs apart from the others.

Finally our duck was able to be reunited with her flock, and (more importantly) her pond!

According to the Merck Veterinary Manual, Oxytetracycline Hydrochloride has a withdrawal period of 5 days for poultry. To be completely safe, I chose to impose a withdrawal period of 20 days after the end of her treatment. She was isolated for 30 total days for her treatment and withdrawal (on top of the time spent attempting her initial surgeries), but in the end, she has been happily reunited with her flock (and POND!) for many months with no recurrence of bumblefoot.

It is worth noting that if you treat an animal, even after the withdrawal period, you can’t sell its products labeled as “organic”. Although they are considered safe for consumption, they no longer comply with the organic guidelines and must be sold as conventional meat.

Treating a host of issues with fish medications…

Because of the similar medications used both in aquaculture and poultry, my father has a whole line of medicated flakes that can be used, when necessary, to treat ailments in poultry. I’ll discuss each of them more in future articles. This same Antibiotic II Flake is also effective against the protozoan that causes Cocci. There are multiple “Deworming” flakes (which my dad has used to treat worms in his own poultry flock, as well as his hunting dogs) and also a flake which contains the very versatile medication, Metronidazole (something that anyone keeping anything like peafowl will find many uses for with their birds).

If you have a bird suffering from bumblefoot or other bacterial infection, I hope this article brings you some hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and all is not lost for your feathered friend! You might be able to find some effective medications locally by simply visiting the aquarium section of your local shops. If you decide to keep one or more of the medicated flakes on hand, they’re a great safely net to keep in the freezer for when an unexpected illness pops up, as poultry with infections or other conditions more severe than bumblefoot often need to be treated immediately in order to recover. At the very least, I hope you feel empowered in caring for your flock, by knowing that you have one more option in your poultry first aid kit.