- Thread starter
- #331
Matilda HAD spurs that would make many roosters envious. (Photo from soon after right foot detached.)One more idea... you say she has spurs. If possible, you could make/have made a prosthetic that "cups" around the back of her leg and uses the spur as its anchor point. A strap above the spur and a strap below the spur. This would alleviate pressure on the actual stump end and would end up being more or less an external type brace, rather than fitting over the stump end. I've drawn some (very crude) pictures to illustrate what it might resemble. One view is the front and another would be a side view.
Oddly, when her feet detached both spurs began to "absorb" and shrink, even though the spurs were attached to live tissue that remained healthy. For Matilda your idea is too late, since months of compression have caused the right spur remnant to be pressed firmly into her foot pad. (The left spur nearly entirely disappeared, & I had assumed the right spur would vanish too.) HOWever, your idea still has merit to be of great help, and here is why.
When It became obvious that Matilda would lose her feet, i poured through old byc threads looking for advice and ideas to make her new reality easier and better. There's quite a lot of frostbite cases threads on byc, but not nearly as much regarding aftercare and prosthetics that people used to help their poultry patients become more mobile. Some of the chicken amputees were roosters, & your idea will be very beneficial to anyone who discovers this thread in the future and is looking for ideas to help their male patient. If I had seen it months ago, I would definitely have used your idea too.
On that note, to all who have made suggestions re making better "feet" for padding and to help Matilda hopefully become even more mobile than before, ALL the ideas are very well-thought out and very appreciated. I already have supplies on hand to incorporate some of the ideas, while with others I will need to purchase supplies. I'm going to spend this weekend studying all your unput carefully and deciding which to try first . (May ultimately use a combination of ideas) Obviously (hopefully!) I won't need to try ALL the ideas to find a great solution to help Matilda. But there will be others in the future that will discover this thread because they have poultry amputee patients of their own. And among all the ideas submitted here, will likely find and make their own solution There have already been more ideas submitted here than I saw on all other frostbite amputee threads Combined. So if anyone is a latecomer to this thread and has a good idea of their owns, please post it. Even though you may never know, it may be Your idea that provides the perfect solution for a future amputee patient in need.