Buck is a lively young British Alpine goat, who shattered the tibia and fibula

One of the pleasures of being a vet is the opportunity to test your skills in species we don't commonly work with, at least not in the way described here.  All mammals have very similar structure and physiology of course, but only similar, and species differences abound.



Principles of orthopaedic repair tend to be relatively uniform however.  We aim to replace broken bones into their normal position, put some form of device in place to resist the forces that will act on the repair and try and disrupt it, and make sure it is a repair modality that the species in question will tolerate. It can make for some head scratching and late nights on global orthopaedic chat rooms (yes, they exist…) trying to come up with solutions.
 
Buck is a lively young British Alpine goat, who shattered the tibia and fibula before Christmas. The multiple fragment nature of this injury made me choose a combination of a pin down the middle of the bone and a fixator frame on the outside. This very strong construction allowed Buck to walk around on the leg while it healed. Over the next 10 weeks the implants were removed in stages, and Buck is now running around as normal again.
 

Honey is a much-loved Flemish Giant rabbit, who was attacked by a dog, and fractured the top of the femur, just below the hip.

This is an unusual fracture in any species, but the presence of a large muscle tendon attaching to the fractured part made a firm repair essential. I chose to use a pin and tension band wire technique, and Honey was back using the leg normally extremely quickly.
 
These two cases illustrate that it is possible to carry out major surgery on all species, if we do a little research, pay attention to detail, and apply basic principles of surgery.
 
The real challenge with these two cases was the anaesthesia, but that’s a topic for another time!