"Bumblefoot" false alarm

Yesterday was almost the Saturday Night Massacre for about half our chickens.  Backstory: that morning when transferring the chickens from their sleeping quarters to their daytime enclosure, I noticed one of them hobbling behind.  She seemed in sad shape: thin on top (well, I can identify there), generally disheveled (ditto) and limping badly.  I think she'd been picked on.  I'm not sure if she's the one who got head-pecked as a young thing, that we call Sinead (because she was a "bald chick" - which is how Frank Sinatra notoriously referred to Sinead O'Connor) because there are currently several with the tonsure look (we're not sure if it's from pecking or from singeing their heads on the heat lamps we set up over the Winter) but she didn't look good.  So I thought I'd leave her outside of the enclosure today just to make sure she didn't get bullied.  Anyway, I told Jami about it and she checked her out and then went away to the Internet (never a good idea) and announced later that she had some bad news.  She had noticed that several of the chickens (including one of the remaining original two and also Dot, our finest-looking and fattest black speckled one) had "lumpy growths" on their feet that, according to the internet, are something called "bumblefoot" that is an incredibly contagious staph infection, and basically they should be culled instantly before the whole flock went down.  As neither of us can stomach actually killing the chickens, this would mean abandoning them in a remote rural area and letting them take their chances.  I was understandably upset.  "What will we tell Thomas?" I said, as I knew severe recriminations would be coming our way if and when he ever found out.  Anyway, I went to have a look at this "bumblefoot" phenomenon.  After squinting intently at the ones Jami pointed out, I was convinced that it was in fact just balls of shit clinging to their feet.  (I know - disgusting creatures.  The Ducks are ashamed to be in the same genus as these fleabags.)  Jami said "no - that's just what it looks like."  Well, I insisted that we actually have a close look.  Jami in turn insisted that it be me that did it, and that I should wear rubber gloves, because of the risk of infection.  Anyway, I caught the older one who seemed to have a worse case (she's the one who has always plucked her own feathers, so she has bald little shoulders - looks disgusting, but a great layer) and tugged at the large "growth".  It did indeed seem hard as a rock and part of the foot.  "You see?" said Jami.  Uncharacteristically, I insisted we soak it in hot soapy water to see if it would come off.  Well, "Shoulders" really seemed to like that, and eventually, it softened to the extent that it came off.  So it was indeed a ball of shit.  But what a ball!  Hard as a rock!  Any dung beetle would've been proud of that creation.  But essentially this bird was walking around with a giant ball of rock-hard shit glued to every other toe.  Ugh.  So panic over, and we still have too many chickens (which is probably why Sinead got pecked in the first place).  Talking of Sinead, we also got around to soaking her foot in salt water and bandaging it: