Animal prosthetics

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I've never known a veterinarian who makes animal prosthetics, but I know a few human prosthetists who are open to making prosthetics for animals. My SO has one leg, and his prosthetist made a fake talon for one of the owls from the wildlife center I work for. His dad was also a prosthetist and made a fake leg for a horse in the 60's or 70's or something. I can't imagine there's a huge demand for animal prosthetic doctors because MOST animals do okay missing a limb.
 
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There are several places near me that make the carts and orthopedic stuff for small animals. I know at least one of them doesn't have a vet on staff. They have I think a former vet tech, an orthopedic guy of some sort that consults and an engineer? The only one I know for sure is the engineer. He teamed up with someone with an AS degree and they got a movement specialist/ ortho/ whatever guy to help make sure the designs were actually an improvement over the current market. Anyway, no doctors in the group at all.
 
We actually have a big on going case at Iowa State with a cat that has 2 prosthetic legs. We just had a case presentation on him. I learned not everyone will go down that route and it is very expensive (like $6000/leg). You can google Vincent the cat at Iowa State. The clinician that helped with the case was Dr. Bergh and she talked a lot about AO foundation during her talk. From what I gathered there is not a specific company that just makes prosthetic legs for animals, it is the human companies scaling it for animals. This is probably due to cost. Vincent (the cat) his legs were donated, but the owners paid for all the other care, which I am sure was thousands of dollars.
 
Tennessee had a big case recently where one of our large animal surgeons successfully put a prosthetic hoof on a bull.

Needless to say, the demand for that service is not very high.
That bull must've been extremely expensive and genetic awesome for them to put that much money into him. Good research opportunity for prosthetic long-term use in a large animal though.
 
Dr. Ric Redden in Versailles, KY has done over 50 prosthetics on horses. Pretty cool to see a horse galloping around with an aluminum leg. It's not cheap but neither are some of the patients. He has a few cases that have had their prosthetic for over 20 years, not bad for long-term use in a large animal.
 
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