1 legged rooster

J

Jakeismydog2

Member
So I was talking to one of my hunting buddies this evening. He told me he took his 16 year old foster boy out last weekend. This is his first season hunting and he has done really well but had not hit anything yet. Well Sunday he got his first pheasant and first quail! Obviously an exciting moment. But it became even more unique when the dog retrieved the rooster and it had only one leg. The missing leg had been missing a while, it was totally healed over just above the missing "knee". He said the good leg had a heck of a spur on it and was certainly a 2 year old bird. When they cut it open no gangrene, nothing odd.

Anyone else come across this before? I know there are a lot of ways for a rooster to loose his leg, but most I am sure would die shortly after the leg injury. What a cool tough bird.

Sorry I don't have a picture.
 
I'm curious, do you know how much fat and muscle the bird had on it? Was it just barely surviving with one leg, or was it getting on just as well as the other roosters?
 
Jakeismydog2 said:
So I was talking to one of my hunting buddies this evening. He told me he took his 16 year old foster boy out last weekend. This is his first season hunting and he has done really well but had not hit anything yet. Well Sunday he got his first pheasant and first quail! Obviously an exciting moment. But it became even more unique when the dog retrieved the rooster and it had only one leg. The missing leg had been missing a while, it was totally healed over just above the missing "knee". He said the good leg had a heck of a spur on it and was certainly a 2 year old bird. When they cut it open no gangrene, nothing odd.

Anyone else come across this before? I know there are a lot of ways for a rooster to loose his leg, but most I am sure would die shortly after the leg injury. What a cool tough bird.

Sorry I don't have a picture.
Click to expand...

I shot one this past fall in SD very similar to what you described Jake. The leg was missing from what I would call the knee down and was completely scaled over like a normal leg. On mine I was thinking that the injury must of happened when very young or born with defect as the joint was fully scaled over with no swelling or callused material. This was definitely not a 2016 bird, spur was nice sized as was tail. I also hold my birds by lower beak and it didn't break.

Toad - my bird was a normal looking bird, both legs were the same size and bird was healthy, I have attached picture of the rooster flushing from point. It was strange but this bird was doing fine from what I could see.
 
That'd be more of a flyer than a runner. :p
 
Never seen a pheasant in wild with 1 leg doing good but have seen 2 or 3 in pens do OK if its just below the knee 1 ring neck & 1 silver pheasant both lived years with peg stump legs.. & 1 duck also...
 
I've had 2 such instances. The first was in NW Kansas where I ran into what I thought was a cripple from the current year. My dog ran it down and caught it, but when I cleaned it I found no wounds. Upon further inspection, one wing had been broken the year before and had healed with a large calcium fusion of the broken bones leaving the bird flightless.

The second was in SW Kansas. Shot this rooster as part of a limit W of here a couple of hours. Didn't notice anything in the field, but when I was cleaning the bird I noticed that he had one foot pointing forward and one foot pointing backward. It too had a large lump of bone where the two ends of the break had fused. I am guessing that the foot turned around while it was broken and the cover made the foot drag with the toes back while it fused. They are really impressive in their ability to survive.
 
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