[Gpdd] (HEALTH) Bumblefoot

[New Dominant II]

Bumblefoot is a foot infection ... it is somewhat preventable by keeping
your babies in a clean environment.  However, my vet thinks that many cases
of pododermititis (I think I spelled that right) are caused by staph
infection transferred from people's hands.

My vet suspects that in the one case I've had, the bacteria got through a
crack in my girl's calloused foot.  She had a very thick callous that
covered most of the ball of her foot.  I trimmed the edges of it, but
nothing more.  From now on, I will treat any large callous by soaking it
until it falls off to make sure the foot remains soft and resistant to
cracking.

My guinea pig really didn't mind the soaking ... I found that it was a good
time to spend one on one time with her ... give her nose scritches and body
rubs ... we had cuddle time while her foot dried (and a bit of time after
that).  The first couple days I had to be insistent that she leave her foot
in the warm water (all I did was scritch her nose and tell her that she
needed to keep her foot in and put her foot back in), but after that, she
usually kept it in the whole 15 minutes until I removed it.

> What is "bumblefoot" exactly? It doesn't sound good, and if it is preventable,
> I sure don't want my piggie getting it-he would NOT appreciate having his foot
> soaked, I'm sure!