Ailing Radnor rooster is crowing for an artificial limb
After amputating bird’s diseased limb, local vet helps create prosthetic for it
RADNOR >> After Clyde, a Dominique rooster, needed to have his foot amputated due to an infection caused by Bumblefoot disease that had infiltrated his tendons, ligaments and bone, his owner decided to see if a prosthetic foot could be created for her pet.
Clyde, a patient of veterinarian Len Donato at Radnor Veterinary Hospital in Wayne, tried out two new plastic prosthetic feet Monday, but promptly kicked them off. One foot was shaped like a fowl foot and the other like a running blade, but neither stayed on for long.
So, it’s back to the drawing board for engineers at the University of Calgary in Canada, who are working with Donato on the project. Donato believes fewer than a handful of prosthetic feet have been made for chickens.
Someone dropped off Clyde, along with some hens, to Kim Marcelliano’s small farm in Sugarloaf Township, Luzerne County. Marcelliano, who rescues animals, said that Clyde can no longer be a free-range rooster and hang out with the rest of his flock or sleep in the barn at night, because with only one foot, he can’t defend himself and he is very protective of his hens. So, he has been kept inside her house in a large dog crate since last fall, she said.
“It’s been a very long year,” said Marcelliano. “He almost died a couple of times.”
A veterinarian in Mountaintop referred Marcelliano to Donato, who is board-certified in bird veterinary medicine and treats many birds. He said his first prosthetic for a bird was a bill for a duck when he was in vet school 1994. Now, “with Three D printers, the process is easier,” he said.
“I do a lot of bird orthopedics,” said Donato. But, he said, “most people don’t want to spend the money.”
Marcelliano has paid about $5,000 on Clyde’s care so far, between treatments for the infection, then surgery to amputate his foot.
“We’ll keep pressing on,” said Donato. “Something will work.” He gave Marcelliano one of the two plastic feet to take home to see if she could jerry-rig it to stay on Clyde. And he was going to send the other foot back to the university for further refinement.
“They’ll keep trying,” said Donato. He had given the engineers a mold of Clyde’s stump as a basis for the prosthesis.
“He’s my buddy,” said Marcelliano of Clyde, who is about 3 years old but can live to be 12. “He really is a good boy. We’re going to get this right.”