am i crazy for trying to save this turkey??

[muddymomma]

i think I already know the answer, but I'm hoping someone has a suggestion so I don't have to eat my buddy! we've only had turkeys a couple months. one of my burbon red girls disappeared, about 5 days later a neighbor knocks on the door saying he found one, was I missing one? when I got to her she'd obviously been sitting there the whole time with 2 broken legs. I took her home thinking 'no way can I save this bird' but she ate and drank and seemed to have a lot of fight left in her so what the heck I tried. both legs have compound fractures with the bone sticking through. one was so bad the leg was at a 90* angle. the other wasn't that noticeable till I looked closely. so I straightened and splinted them and fashioned her a sling to keep the weight off of them. it's been a couple weeks, her feet have been warm so there is blood flow. she's moving her legs, but when I unwrapped them the worse one is still obviously not healed. it's floppy and starting to look a bit shriveled. the other one seems to be ok. she's flexing her foot and it looks pretty good. i'm wondering if a turkey can live with one leg?? I can take it off, or leave it and just see what happens to it. and I don't mind doing the work to rehabilitate her. but i'd like her to be able to reproduce and i'm not sure that's possible. I kind of like the girl, she's pretty spunky and has a lot of life in her. plus my 4yo is getting pretty attached. if I can save her i'd like to try but i'm afraid she'll be ending up in the freezer. any thoughts? she's around 2yrs old if that makes a difference...

 

[chickensnewtome]

If both legs are warm then they are getting blood. I think if that one leg is still warm you should keep it casted and make sure you have her on a pretty high protein diet. My duck broke her leg and after a month it is finally healing. I understand how some ppl can say "quality of life" but I think your little girl still has quality of life. I am pretty sure when mating a female turkey lays down and the male gets on top so I dont think her legs will be a problem. I would say give her a couple more weeks to try and heal and take it from there. Hope to hear from ya soon about how she is doing.

 

[muddymomma]

that's what I was thinking, if there's blood flow it should heal. not properly but perhaps I could save her leg. but I took a good look earlier and the bone coming from her foot is sticking out of the side of her leg and it's scabbed up pretty good. the flesh is the only thing holding that leg together and her foot is starting to contract and is shrunken slightly compared to the other one. i'm thinking I should probably amputate it, not like i'd have to cut through the bone to do it. I was mainly concerned if a one legged turkey was a possibility, never heard of such a thing! I was also thinking of cleaning off all the scabbed up areas and seeing if I could set the bone somewhat straight. but it's been a couple weeks since she was hurt and i'm thinking that may do more harm than good. through all this it hasn't seemed like she was in pain, but I don't really know what to look for. seems like it'd hurt something awful!

 

[chickensnewtome]

there is posts about one legged ducks living. They have to be more pampered to then others but they are making it.