Bumblefoot in Chickens

One of our chickens has bumblefoot. Since chickens use their feet to explore and forage, I knew, at some point, we’d have to deal with it. It’s inevitable that they will damage or cut their footpad and develop bumblefoot.

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So what exactly is Bumblefoot? 

Bumblefoot in chickens also known as footpad dermatitis or pododermatitis refers to any inflammatory or degenerative condition of the chicken’s foot. defined by Chicken DVM

In layman’s terms, it’s a staph infection. It usually starts as a cut or puncture wound that get’s infected. Like I said early, chickens use their feet for everything, including walking through poop. No wonder it gets infected! 

There are different levels of severity or grades of bumblefoot in chickens. In the first grade, you may notice redness of the footpad or it could be shiny where the top layer of skin has worn off. 

2nd grade is a surface lesion without swelling. Clara has one that we are monitoring. 

3rd grade is abscess with swelling and possibly draining

4th grade is infection and swelling usually involving deep tissues. 

Final grade is deformity, crippling, and unable to use. 

If Bumblefoot goes untreated it could cause a bone infection, blood infection, or death. Additionally, it impedes your chicken’s ability to forage for food or get away from a predator. 

Since we only have six chickens, it’s pretty easy to check. Bumblefoot is most recognizable as a scab or black dot on the bottom of the foot. They may also have swelling between the toes. If your birds are hard to catch, checking at night when they are roosting or sleepy is a  great time to do this.

 I noticed Clara’s about a month ago and was just monitoring. It wasn’t slowing her down at all. Then I started to notice her limping and saw the swelling on her pad with a scab. Classic bumblefoot. 

How to Treat Bumblefoot in Chickens?

If you catch it early, bumblefoot is very treatable.

If it’s grade four or five, you may need to contact a vet. However, I know many people don’t have access to a poultry vet or can’t afford it. 

Get all your supplies ready:

• Gloves
• Peroxide
• Tweezers
• Blade or scalpel
• Neosporin
• Vetericyn
• Paper towels
• Cornstarch
• Prid
• Non-stick pad
• Vet wrap

To keep her calm, I wrapped her in a towel and covered her head. She tolerated the procedure very well.

Here’s What We Did to Treat Bumblefoot. 

Since Bumblefoot is a staph infection. Make sure you wear gloves when dealing with it. 

Clara’s scab was pretty big and hard. The Bearded Rooster used a blade and scraped it off. From there, he squeezed and got the puss out. It was similar to a corn kernel. Additionally, Clara had some stringy puss like stuff. He pulled it out with tweezers. 

If you can pull the scab off with tweezers, it may pull the core out with it. Many times it’s attached to the scab. The core is the infection and dehydrated pus.

Now that the core was removed, Clara had a small hole in her foot. I poured peroxide on it and it bubbled a little. Next, I packed the hole with triple antibiotic ointment. I’ve always been told to use the original version and not the type with pain relief. We used a non-stick sterile 2×2 pad and wrapped it with vet wrap. 

It’s recommended to check every day but we didn’t get home until late the following day so we waited for two days. Her foot looked so much better. I sprayed with Vetericyn to clean, repeated the antibiotic ointment with the non-stick pad, and wrapped.  If you don’t have Vetericyn, you can use soap and water or saline. I love the convenience of the spray plus it’s antibacterial. 

After a week of this treatment, it looked great. 

If the scab doesn’t come off easily, you may have to cut open. I’ve contemplated adding a scalpel to my first aid kit and definitely doing so now. 

Cornstarch is great to have on hand to control bleeding. Some people use Clotisol or another blood clotting suspension but I’ve found the cornstarch to work fine (and it’s cheap).

Clara didn’t bleed much. I was able to stop it with light pressure and a paper towel. 

I didn’t use the Prid since we decided to remove it. Prid is a drawing salve. Your grandmother might have used this or something similar for splinters. You can purchase Prid at any pharmacy or Walmart. I got it from Amazon.   

If you notice a bumble without swelling, clean the foot. Many people soak with Epsom salts. Our girls are so flighty, we just use Vetericyn spray to clean it off. Next apply a good amount of Prid to the pad, add a non-stick pad, and wrap with vetwrap. Do this every day for a week. It will either bring it to a head or resolve completely.

I wished I’d done this initially with Clara’s.

How Can You Prevent Bumblefoot in Chickens?

Most bumblefoot is caused by a laceration or puncture wound. It can also be caused by jumping off roost bars and landing on a hard surface (breaking the skin). This is probably what happened to Clara. 

It could also start as skin irritation. Common irritants are dirty litter, standing water, and excess poop. Keep your coop and run clean to eliminate any skin irritation.

Last year, we had a problem with standing water and mud in our run so we switched to mulch. It’s been a lifesaver and needless to say, I haven’t slipped and fallen on my butt since we changed! Lol But it’s rough on my feet (sometimes I go out there barefoot) and I can only imagine it is also rough on the chicken’s feet. I may have to consider changing it. 

• Check the chickens run or coop for any rough surfaces, especially the roost bars. Replace any if necessary. 
• Do you have tree stumps or other branches in their area? Check those too.
• Our girls hang out under our red tip bushes and there are broken branches, leaves, and other debris. I’ve left it because they enjoy scratching around in it but I’m going to spend some time this weekend and clean it up. 
• Check anywhere else the chickens may wander. Is there metal edging, wire, fence post, etc. that could cause a problem?

If the bumblefoot is bad or you had to dig around in the foot to remove, you may want to quarantine your bird for a few days to give her a rest. 

I clean our coop every couple of weeks. If your bird gets bumblefoot, it’s not necessarily anything you did or didn’t do. The key is catching it early. Be sure and do a chicken check-up once a month and just a general once over as often as possible. When I let the chickens out in the morning, one of the first things I notice is how they are acting including walking or running out of the coop. 

This post is not intended to replace veterinary care. If you are unsure, always contact an avian vet.