Date: November 20, 2019
Source: Cell Press
Sheep and dog bones can be whittled into orthopedic pins that stabilize pigeons' fractured wings, helping the fractures to heal properly without follow-up surgery. Researchers describe the treatment, which is cheaper and more efficient than using metal pins for pigeon rehabilitative surgeries, November 20th in the journal Heliyon.
"There is no need for the implants to be removed because they will ultimately be absorbed by the body," says first author Saifullah Dehghani Nazhvani, of the Shiraz University School of Veterinary Medicine's department of surgery in Iran. "Therefore, the implants can be used for wild birds, such as eagles, owls, and seagulls."
Nazhvani works at a veterinary clinic at Shiraz University, where they frequently see wild and companion birds suffering from fractures in their wings or legs. They typically use metal pins, which is standard for these types of procedures, but they noticed imbalance in the flight, take off, or landings after fracture repair. Therefore, they wanted a technique to use lightweight pins that they did not need to remove.
Nazhvani's team thought bones could be the answer. They sanded and processed sheep and dog bones, obtained from animals that had previously died, into pins small enough to be inserted into a pigeon's humeral bones -- the wing bone closest to a bird's body. After 32 weeks of observation, pigeons with sheep or dog bone orthopedic pins were able to fly as well as before the operation.
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