Updated 14/4/12
Hades finally had his Thomas splint removed this week – Yeah!
An Xray has shown that the break has healed well. During the time he has had the slpint in place he has grown so much that at the end the toes were touching the ground. He now weighs well over 20 kg compared to 8 kg when he first broke his leg.
Hades does not quite know what to do with this new 4th leg. I guess he has managed without it for 8 weeks. The leg is stiff and obviuously the muscles are weak.
I have noted that when standing he rests the leg on the ground and takes a few ginger steps with it. However when he runs the legs gets lifted off to the side and away he goes. I am hoping that the next few weeks will see the muscles strengthen and Hades will put that 4th leg to good use.
Update 15/3/12
An xray taken yesterday has shown that Hades is healing well. The leg has twisted slightly but the break has already formed a strong callus. The bandage was reapplied and will be reviewed weekly for the next few weeks when we hope it will be removed and all will be well. He and his Mum are coping so well with being kept in a confined area but I am sure they will be looking forward to the day when they can go back into the paddock and Hades can meet his friends again
Hades Story
On Wednesday 15th February Nic was checking the cria when he noticed Hades, our one week old dark fawn boy, limping. On closer inspection it was apparent he had broken his leg (left hind tibia bone to be specific). It was awful watching him getting around the paddock with one leg literally swinging in the breeze. Amazingly other than the obvious sign that the leg was broken Hades was behaving almost normally. Nic carried him to the car where we took him straight to the vet. The prognosis was good as it was a clean break and we could get away with external strapping rather than an internal plate or pin requiring an anaesthetic. From experience alpacas do not do well under anaesthesia. They are very difficult to intubate (place a tube down their wind pipe to assist breathing during anaesthisia) and because of their long necks the use of a mask is inaffective -the shallow breathing caused by the anaesthitic does not allow the oxygenated air to travel all the way to the lungs and they can deteriorate quickly.
Luckily for us and Hades his fracture was able to be strapped and a Thomas Splint was manufactured by our very handy vet (Nic supplied the wire) and fitted to ensure that when he walked the weight was transfered from the broken leg to up around the hip area. Basically it is a wire splint which fits over the leg and the padded section sits around the top of the leg, see pictures for more details. When applied correctly the Thomas Splint allows the broken leg to hang within the Splint and heal without any pressure when the animal walks. Hades was given daily penicillin injections for one week to ensure no secondary infection set in.
WEEK ONE
Obviously it was important to keep the leg/bandages dry and limit Hades movement. Initially we placed him in our alpaca shed but there was the chance of his Thomas Splint catching in the gaps in the wooden floor. So then we bought some fake grass and placed that in an area of about 6 x 2 meters – although the grass has holes in it for drainage we found it did not drain well enough and both Hades and his Mum were wet where they cushed. As the weather has been dry and warm we decided to place them in a small yard to get some sunshine. As you can see in the pictures the Thomas Splint sits up off the hip and we found that Hades got caught in the wire of the fence more than once. In the end we placed him into our quarantine/mating yard. The yard has solid walls on three sides with fine mesh on the front. The gravel floor makes it easy to keep clean and dry and Hades seems to be able to easily drag the leg around – leaving tracks where ever he has been. I have seen him give his good back leg a rest whilst placing his weight entirely onto the Thomas Splint. It looks quite funny when he does this as the splint is longer than his good leg so when he rests on the splint the good leg is left to hang in the air. He is feeding well and he passsed his first follow up visit to the vet with flying colours.
His Mum is not that happy about being locked up with him but I guess she will get use to it as the recovery will be about six weeks! As you can see he is a gorgeous boy and we are very pleased that his prognosis is looking good. I will keep you posted on his progress!
Lynda Holdsworth
Registered Critical Care Nurse in a previous life!!Before I found the joys of alpacas that is.
