Ozzie the goose gets 3D-printed prosthetic
CUTTING-edge technology and a host of good Samaritans have given a crippled gosling a new leg — and the chance to walk again. When Ozzie the goose was born, his mother accidentally stepped on him, damaging his leg. Shortly afterwards, a veterinarian amputated the gosling’s leg at the knee.
The bird was then given to Johannesburg animal rescuer Sue Burger to care for him.
“When he came to me his whole body was skew,” said Burger.
She would suspend Ozzie in a hammock, his good leg and his stump dangling through two holes. At other times, he had to sit in a container.
Burger wrote in a letter to a local newspaper to plead for help.
“He has a very strong will to survive. He swims, he cleans his feathers, he even tries to stand on one leg to get to his tummy feathers, but not for long. He wants to do things like other goslings, but does not know he can’t,” she wrote.
A local radio station responded to her plight and put her in touch with BunnyCorp, which specialises in tailor-made 3D printing and developing prosthetics with doctors for humans, and agreed to help Ozzie.
BunnyCorp’s Philip van der Walt said Ozzie was first given a “peg-leg” but that his prosthetic leg has evolved. It now bends at the knee and has a webbed “foot” that can swivel.
“He is walking — waddling more than anything else — as he gets used to the idea of having a leg,” said Van der Walt.
However, prospects for Ozzie flying are less rosy. “That’s OK, because he’s . . . attached to me, following me wherever I go and wanting to be cuddled,” Van der Walt said. — Staff Reporter