White Tailed Black breaks leg: a mature White Tailed Black was presented with a break in his right leg. Looked simple enough – the fracture was new, clean and in the middle of the bone. I operated and placed a pin in the bone – gave a very nice result.

All looked good until a bandage change when I noticed some tissue on the inside of the leg looking very dark and the bird was not moving his toes. The bird had caught his leg in a wire cage, the trauma of the wire appears to have killed a section of the soft tissue on the inside of the leg (where the nerve runs). It has taken several weeks of repeated bandage changes to get the dead tissue to come away and new tissue to regrow.

The bird has now gone back into the aviary, but the foot, although it has blood supply is not moving. We will have to wait 3 – 6 months to see if the nerve damage will repair.

Although this looked like a simple case and we approached it with confidence nature always has a way of upsetting the best plans.