How we treated Houdini our pet turkey with bumblefoot and a broken ankle

For those of you who don’t know we have a pet turkey names Houdini, she is named after the escape artist Harry Houdini. When she was just a chick she was able to escape the brooder when all the other baby chickens and turkeys couldn’t. We knew right then that she was something special in a turkey sorta way. This will all make sense when you hear why we dedicated two month of constant care to heal her after an injury.

Not only is she an escape artist, she’s also a pickpocket. She’s able to take cell phones out of our pocket without us noticing, she loves to take rides in the wheel barrel, and also hops in a car or truck if the door is open. I have to watch closely that she doesn’t ride off with a UPS or FEDEX driver. Wouldn’t that be a surprise at their next stop?

Anywho, late summer she started limping and within a couple of weeks it was so bad she could barely get around. I could see her foot and ankle were quite swollen so hubby helped me get her on her back so I could inspect what was going on. I filled my little red wagon with straw, and and old sheet (acting as a gurney) and that’s where we found she had bumblefoot and a broken ankle. My assumption is the bumblefoot was caused by a straw sliver imbedding in her foot. She’s a big girl, about 50 pounds and when all that weight crashes down off the roost it could easily cause the straw from the coop floor to act just like a sliver and pierce her foot bed. I’m pretty sure all that weight also caused her to break her ankle when she descends the roost.

For those of you who don’t know what bumblefoot is here is the definition: Bumblefoot this is the long version, the short version is it’s a staph infection.

Once we knew what we were dealing with we gathered everything that was needed to treat the bumblefoot (scalpel, drawing salve, hemostats, triple antibiotic, and bandages) we got right to work operating and removing the bumble. Apparently it’s not painful while worked on. Hubby removed the large black scab, pulled the bumple out, cleaned the area, added black drawing salve, antibiotic, and bandaged the foot. The entire time she just laid on her back and slept like nothing was even going on.

While we had her on the stretcher we noticed her ankle was broken so we also wrapped that to hold it in place. I made two vet appointments to have her looked at and both times the vet called and cancelled the appointment. I was pretty upset I wanted her looked at but they told me turkeys are mean and they didn’t want to deal with her. I told them she’s a pet and is not mean in any way but they still refused to see her. All I really wanted to know is if I was treating her in the right way and they wouldn’t even tell me that over the phone. Said they couldn’t diagnosis or recommend treatment without seeing the animal. Insert big eye roll here.

At this point she couldn’t walk so I carried her everywhere she needed to go. I’d take her out of the coop every morning, she’d ride in the wagon, take her bandages off and place her in an epsom salt bath for 30 minutes and rebandage it. Then I’d place here near the house where I could keep an eye on her all day. I’d go out and change her water several times a day and I was also feeding her a high protein diet, (chicken, venison, ground beef, sunflower seeds, dried nuts and berries, and electrolytes) so she’d heal faster. It was also at the heat of the summer so I placed a big golf umbrella over her, she doesn’t like the heat, and went out and moved it every hour as the sun moved. Every night before bed time I do the process again. Give her an epsom salt bath, rebandage and carry her back to the coop for the night.

We went on this way for 30 days and she still wasn’t even attempting to walk. By this time the bumble was healed but the broken ankle was still not strong enough to even stand on. I told hubby this has went on for way to long and I was thinking she would never recover. I was wondering if it was time to put her down. Well hubby wasn’t having it, he just loves that bird so he called a local restaurant that serves turkey but also raises there own turkeys on the farm. He was hoping they could give him a reference for a vet, the one they use, not serve her on the menu. Mind you I was thinking this is the dumbest idea ever but he placed the call and what do you know he actually got to talk to the lady who treats the farm turkeys and she said we were doing exactly what we should be doing. She said turkey take forever to heal, even longer than chickens but she said Houdini would eventually walk it would just take time possibly a very long time.

Exactly 60 days later she was up and walking. She does walk with a limp but it doesn’t seem to slow here down any and 90 days later she was back up on the roost. Wow what a long process that was but I can say it is doable it just takes a lot of care and patience. I sure hope it never happens again though. I’m not sure I’d want to go through all this again. Not to mention she also went through a molt at the same time so with the feather loss on top of it all she looked just pitiful.