Gimpy was born in my friend's university laboratory almost 2 months ago with a few hundred other naked & feathered chicks. He was bred to one day possibly help alleviate hunger in hot countries where poor farmers can't afford to cool their chicken houses for Cornish cross. He specifically targets the Asian market with his black skin & meat which is thought to be of great health benefit in the Asian culture. However, Gimpy was a cull due to his puny size & 90 degree angled lower leg. I went to the university to see how the chicks were doing & separated them into broilers & bantams before deciding to take 2 lucky cull chicks home to live in my house as pets & have a good life until they died naturally.
I chose one pink skinned tiny chick & the black skinned runt of the flock but I couldn't leave Gimpy behind. He was so game & full of life that I decided to take him home & see if he could manage, with the thought of putting him down if he couldn't. Gimpy is in the front & you can see his leg if you look closely.
They all grew big & strong in their aquarium on good food with no competition & the other two spent most days sparring & unfortunately often stepped on Gimpy's deformed leg which hurt him & sometimes swelled so I removed him to a cage right next to them where he could see them but not get hurt.
Gimpy grew & grew but that leg just got in the way. The fact that he couldn't stand on it didn't seem to bother him that much but the horizontal part caught on everything & made his life difficult so I was faced with a difficult task...to find a vet willing to amputate half a chicken leg- for free!!
I first spoke to my vet who has never touched a bird or done any sort of amputation on anything. She was terrified but willing to try if no one else would & spoke to every bird & chicken vet in the area but they stoutly refused & prophesied doom on the operation & subsequent prosthesis planned. I am no newby to chickens however & while I agreed with them in a normal chicken being unable to cope, I had spent weeks watching this chick & saw how he got around just fine with one leg except for the bit that stuck out & bothered him so much so I was determined to go ahead & at last found a wonderful vet at the university (the head of the B.Sc. program) who was willing to try.
Today we operated. First we examined him & decided to see if we couldn't fuse the leg solid but after first incision, we saw that the whole joint was deformed & had to come off so we proceeded & all went well. I wont post surgery photos because they are graphic in the extreme, enough so that I had to leave the op room for a minute after zooming in to take them. However, all went extremely well though I was rather chicken about my pet being operated on. Post op still under anesthetic.
He is doing so well tonight as a one legged chicken!! He hops around happily & is eating & drinking like a star. I can only hope he heals quickly & then I will decide on when/if to fit him with a prosthesis.
I chose one pink skinned tiny chick & the black skinned runt of the flock but I couldn't leave Gimpy behind. He was so game & full of life that I decided to take him home & see if he could manage, with the thought of putting him down if he couldn't. Gimpy is in the front & you can see his leg if you look closely.
They all grew big & strong in their aquarium on good food with no competition & the other two spent most days sparring & unfortunately often stepped on Gimpy's deformed leg which hurt him & sometimes swelled so I removed him to a cage right next to them where he could see them but not get hurt.
Gimpy grew & grew but that leg just got in the way. The fact that he couldn't stand on it didn't seem to bother him that much but the horizontal part caught on everything & made his life difficult so I was faced with a difficult task...to find a vet willing to amputate half a chicken leg- for free!!
I first spoke to my vet who has never touched a bird or done any sort of amputation on anything. She was terrified but willing to try if no one else would & spoke to every bird & chicken vet in the area but they stoutly refused & prophesied doom on the operation & subsequent prosthesis planned. I am no newby to chickens however & while I agreed with them in a normal chicken being unable to cope, I had spent weeks watching this chick & saw how he got around just fine with one leg except for the bit that stuck out & bothered him so much so I was determined to go ahead & at last found a wonderful vet at the university (the head of the B.Sc. program) who was willing to try.
Today we operated. First we examined him & decided to see if we couldn't fuse the leg solid but after first incision, we saw that the whole joint was deformed & had to come off so we proceeded & all went well. I wont post surgery photos because they are graphic in the extreme, enough so that I had to leave the op room for a minute after zooming in to take them. However, all went extremely well though I was rather chicken about my pet being operated on. Post op still under anesthetic.
He is doing so well tonight as a one legged chicken!! He hops around happily & is eating & drinking like a star. I can only hope he heals quickly & then I will decide on when/if to fit him with a prosthesis.
