Volunteer vet fashions fix for Frankie

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Frankie the duck had a proverbial hitch in his (or her) proverbial get-along. More on the hitch in a moment.

First let’s deal with the “his or her” thing. You see, birds are notoriously difficult to sex. Many times, it takes surgery to clarify what parts are at work, until that is, eggs start dropping.

So when Nancy Butlin wandered into a local feed store and spied a tiny duckling dragging one of its feet around inside a large box, she decreed the bird a female. Hedging her bets, though, Butlin decided to name the duck, Frankie, figuring that would work either way.

When Butlin called Frankie to a clerk’s attention, she got permission to take the $3 critter home for free. But it was just heartbreaking for the Butlin family members to watch the poor bird struggle to walk.

“We love her and we'd love to help her but we really can't get into thousands of dollars of vet bills for a $3 duck

In fact, Nancy had promised her husband she wouldn’t commit the household to “footing” big vet bills, so she pitched a story about Frankie to KXAN News.

The resulting story led to veterinary surgeon Dr. Kirk Lewis at Animal Trustees of Austin volunteering to perform a surgical fix for a fraction of the normal cost.

Lewis, though, without digging for confirmation, decreed Frankie a male. Therefore in the following story, the words “he” and “she” shall appear from time to time and let’s all agree to assume we are talking about the same animal.

The hitch

The problem was this: Imagine your leg, about halfway between your knee and your ankle, suddenly takes a 90-degree turn and sticks straight out.

“His, like basically our shin bone, his tibia,” said Dr. Lewis, “it just may have been injured when he was really young or just had a growth deficiency.

“And what happened is it caused that leg to basically turn 90 degrees. So the inside of his foot was actually turned up; it actually rotated up.”

As a result, Frankie would take a step with his left leg and then drag her right leg along, resulting in heavy pressure on the top of the right foot. It wasn’t pretty and it would make escaping a predator impossible.

The fix

To remedy the situation, Dr. Lewis decided to cut a pie-piece-shaped wedge out of the bone at the outside point of the turn. He then forced a metal pin down into the bottom part of the bone, then into the top, forcing the leg to straighten out.

Suturing the wound, the surgeon then wrapped the leg in gauze for protection before taping an exterior splint to the resulting gauze bandage for stability.

“That's a much better leg; a lot straighter,” the doctor said, admiring his handiwork.

The therapy

For the Butlin family, though, there will be some homework.

“He's going to have to have some physical therapy,” said Lewis, “to stretch that joint back out because he's had it tucked for so long and that's how he's been walking on it, kind of upside down. So we've got to retrain that joint, you know, to stretch it back out.”

The prognosis

The prognosis, though, is apparently excellent.

“It will come around,” Lewis said, “because he's young and still growing…he should be just fine.”

The surgeon expects Frankie to be on his/her feet and chasing bugs at full speed in as little as a month to six weeks.

Not bad for a $3 duck.