Emu broke his leg...

[BairleaFarm]

I think.



The emus have done well except for one of them. I don't know what happened but it appears one has a damaged leg. The knee is showing through the skin. The chick can get around fine by hopping. Should I leave it alone or bandage it or worse case.. amputate the leg. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated

.

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[Tame Emu Guy]

Hey ya, B.F.

Just to start, could you bandage/poultice?

Seen some pictures of little slings that leave a bird/chick with no weight on its legs.


At this second, if the chick is on its own, and it can hop around (heavily bandaged/poulticed) by itself, it can heal if there's no major damage.

If you think you're down to simply saving the chick, what about swaddling it for a few days? shut its leg movement right down (with poultice)? Maybe even hood it? I think that it's the first day or so of healing that is important.



From an incident a couple of years ago: had a frantic leg-injured bandaged wild emu chick in a cardboard box, and I think what settled the matter was the chick's frantic lunging about. I wished then that I could calm the critter. Didn't know about a hood then.

I don’t ruckon a one-legged emu would live.

S.E.

 

[BairleaFarm]

Thanks. I cleaned the wound. It appears the tendons have slid off the knee over to one side. I can pop them back over to the center of the leg and the leg then looks swollen but otherwise normal. I've taped the knee so it hopefully keeps everything where it needs to be. I currently have him in the tv room. I want to see if he can sit in his resting position. So far he's just kneeling. I did notice while typing this that he flexed his toes on the bad foot. He wasn't doing that when I was observing him prior to the tape job.

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[yinepu]

keep it clean and bandaged, monitor it for infection and see how he does.. if it gets worse you may have to find a good avian vet or cull the little guy

and I hate to say it.. but I agree with SE about a one legged emu... he wouldn't fare very well at all if it came down to amputation.

 

[BairleaFarm]

The others are protective of him. I can't get the tendon to stay put. He still moves around well enough to get to the food and water. I'm off to email a vet.

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[misschrissya]

Did your emu recover? I have a two month old chick that had the same injury. We had a surgical repair done to hold the tendon in place and are currently still in a soft cast. Vet not optimistic but so far all is healing well