3D Printed Prosthetics Giving Animals A Second Chance

From fake flippers to bogus beaks, injured animals can now be treated with prosthetics that are created with 3-D printing technology. Let's check out how 3D printers give animals a second chance!

Grecia, The Toucan With A Prosthetic Beak

In January 2015, some good Samaritans in the town of Grecia, Costa Rica, discovered a toucan with a horrifically-injured beak. The poor bird had been viciously attacked by teenagers, so her rescuers took her to the nearby Rescate Wildlife Rescue Center for help. The doctors named the bird Grecia after the place she was found, and tried to treat her.

But, she couldn’t eat properly without her beak, and they couldn’t hand-feed her forever, so they thought she’d need to be humanely euthanized. However, as her story started to receive media attention, three 3D-printing companies offered to work together to make Grecia a prosthetic beak out of nylon thermoplastic. They started by scanning a recently-deceased toucan’s beak and scanning Grecia’s injured face, before combining the scans to create a 3D model of a beak that would fit the toucan perfectly.

Then it was time for the printing to begin. This process involves melting a material like thermoplastic, and placing it down in layers that stack on top of each other to create the shape of an inputted 3D Model. The team at Rescate continued to hand-feed Grecia while the prosthetic was developed, and a year after her attack, it was ready. The doctors permanently glued the top part to Grecia’s stump, and attached the lower-half with a pin for easy removal and cleaning.

With this, she became the first toucan to ever receive a 3D-printed beak, and she could finally eat on her own, and even sing again! Grecia had to stay at the rescue center so the vets could clean her beak and make sure her wounds didn’t re-open. But she lived there for eight more happy years, before old-age caught up with her in 2022.

Victoria, The Goose

Grecia’s white beak was left unpainted, as her caretakers wanted to highlight the abuse she’d received and raise awareness about animal cruelty. However, other birds have received more realistic prosthetics. In 2015, Victoria the goose was found with a badly broken beak in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and her rescuers suspected she’d been attacked by dogs.

A nonprofit organization called Friend of the Sea took her in and contacted a company who specialize in animal prosthetics called Animal Avengers. So, the Avengers Assembled and took a cast of the remaining parts of her beak, before scanning it, 3D-designing a matching beak, and printing it out of strong PLA plastic.

Victoria was the first goose to get a 3D-printed beak, and once the prosthetic was fitted and painted yellow she completely recovered! In fact, a year later she found a mate and had some kids! It looks like she found a guy who’s really into plastic surgery!

TurboRoo, The 2-Legged Chihuahua

There’s nothing better than watching your dog get the zoomies, but just imagine if that good-boy had wheels! In 2014, a Chihuahua called TurboRoo was born without front legs, so his breeder surrendered him to The Downtown Veterinarian in Indianapolis where he was adopted by a vet technician called Ashley.

Ashley knew Turbo would need a cart to move freely, but she couldn’t find one built for a dog that was so small. So, she personally hand-built Turbo some carts using parts from a toy airplane.

She then started posting videos of Turbo on Facebook, which caught the attention of an aerospace engineer called Mark Deadrick who owned a 3D-printer. Mark decided to make Turbo a custom cart tailored to his size, by taking rough measurements from watching Ashley’s videos, and using them to 3D-print a plastic chest plate.

Next, he attached the plate to a set of skateboard wheels and delivered the prosthetic, which totally changed the puppy’s life. The prosthetic fit perfectly, and after a week of practice, Turbo was able to run around completely normally!

The 3D-printed cart worked far better than Ashley’s DIY designs, and Mark could print new carts when Turbo outgrew his old ones. Over the next ten years, Turbo got several sets of wheels as he grew larger, and he’s gathered a lot of support on Instagram, with around 400,000 followers. This makes him one of the most famous animals to receive a 3D-printed prosthetic, and he’s still rollin’ today, much to the delight of his fans!

Winter, The Dolphin

Some scientists believe that dolphins are the second-smartest species on the planet. But unfortunately, they’re not quite intelligent enough to make 3D-printed prosthetics, so sometimes they need humanity’s help.

In 2005, a Florida fisherman called Jim Savage found a 2-month-old bottlenose dolphin tangled up in a crab trap, which cut off her tail’s blood supply. He called the Clearwater Marine Aquarium for help, and they brought her to their animal hospital, named her Winter, and saved her life. But her tail was so badly-damaged that it had to be amputated.

Afterwards, Winter couldn’t swim properly, as she was forced to move her body side-to-side like a fish instead of up-and-down like a dolphin. This caused her spine to twist unnaturally, so in 2006, a renowned prosthetist called Kevin Carroll offered to build Winter a new tail after hearing about her story on the radio.

Carroll had never worked with dolphins, so his team 3D-printed a few experimental designs out of a strong carbon-composite. But they found that they all fell off Winter as she swam around because her skin was so slippery. As Carroll searched for a solution, he eventually developed “Winter’s Gel”, a silicone material that stuck to the dolphin’s body the way a disposable glove sticks to your hand. The gel allowed the prosthetic to stay attached to Winter, so after 18-months of research, she received her new tail and could swim properly again!

Winter's New Tail - Winter the Dolphin: Saving Winter - Episode 8 by Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Winter’s story became pretty famous, and in 2011 she got to play herself in a movie about her life called Dolphin Tale. She was a beloved figure, and the Aquarium hosted special sessions where people with limb differences would meet Winter to help motivate them. This continued until Winter tragically passed away from twisted intestines in 2021, but she left quite a legacy, as she became an inspirational figure for humans who need prosthetics!

Bo, The Goat

Most goats spend their days roaming around fields and headbutting everything that crosses their path. So, when baby Bo was born with a hole in his skull in 2021, it put him in great danger, as a misplaced headbutt could fatally damage his brain.

An animal sanctuary called Goats of Anarchy took Bo in to look after him, as they specialize in caring for goats with disabilities. But Bo wouldn’t stop headbutting stuff, and they knew that they needed to solve his problem before he hurt himself.

So, they partnered with 3D-Pets, an animal-prosthetics company that usually specializes in creating prosthetic legs for dogs. 3D-Pets agreed to help the goat, and they used a phone to take a 3D scan of Bo’s head. Then, they designed and printed a helmet for him out of TPU, a flexible plastic that can handle a headbutt.

After the headgear was fitted, Bo could safely headbutt anything, and although he rapidly outgrew his first helmet, 3D Pets could immediately redesign and print new, larger models, that came in alternate colors! The helmet greatly increased Bo’s quality of life, but tragically he passed away from heart failure about a year later. Still thanks to 3D-Pets, he spent his final months happily headbutting everything he could, as his helmet gave him a chance to live the overly-aggressive lifestyle of an ordinary goat!

Mouse Pig, Farm Sanctuary

Some animals need an actual rescue mission before 3D-printing can step in, and in 2015, an unlicensed butcher in Hudson Valley, New York was caught storing live animals in horrific conditions. An animal-protection organization called Farm Sanctuary rescued over 170 animals from the site, and one of them was a young pig called Mouse, who had a badly-broken back leg that hung limply by his side.

Mouse could move pretty well on three legs, but the sanctuary knew that when he grew up he’d weigh around 350lbs and he’d need all 4-legs to support his weight. Mouse needed surgery, so Farm Sanctuary contacted the Cornell University Hospital for Animals for help, and their vets came up with a surgical procedure that utilized 3D-printing tech.

They scanned Mouse’s leg and 3D-printed a life-sized model of it, which they used to experiment with different methods of surgery. Using the model, they determined that the best method would be to re-break Mouse’s leg-bones, before adding metal-rods in the breaks. Then, they’d gradually extend the rods to stretch his leg back to its normal length, while new bone grew to fill the gaps.

They also found that the broken leg’s hoof was damaged beyond repair, so they’d have to amputate it and replace it with a prosthetic. After planning the surgery with this 3D-printed model, they operated, and in January 2016 Mouse was finally able to stand on four legs!

This Little Piggy Went to Cornell by Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine

His broken hoof was ultimately replaced with a tennis ball, but after weeks of physical therapy he was able to walk around pretty naturally, and move back to the Farm Sanctuary where he’ll be looked after for the rest of his life!

Turtle Gets 3D-Printed Beak

Injuries are traumatic for any animal, but some of them get particularly shell-shocked. In May 2015, a loggerhead sea turtle collided with a boat propeller in Turkey, which completely shattered parts of its jaw. The injured creature was found out at sea, before being scooped up and brought to the Research, Rescue and Rehabilitation center at Pamukkale University, where it was named A.K.U.T.3.

Loggerhead turtles eat hard-shelled prey like sea snails, and they need their jaw to crunch down on them. So, the vets were worried that T3 would starve,until a company called BTech Innovation came to the rescue by agreeing to design a jaw implant for the turtle. Most 3D-printing uses thermoplastics, but a plastic jaw would degrade as the turtle crunched down on sea snails, so the team at BTech decided to use titanium instead.

This requires a different process, and after scanning T3’s face and designing the 3D model of the prosthetic, they uploaded it to a Selective Laser Melting 3D-Printer. Inside, there’s an ultra-thin layer of titanium powder, and a laser is used to melt it in the shape of your 3D-model so it fuses together to create a solid metal section. After this has cooled and solidified, a new layer of powder is added on top, and the laser fires again, repeating this process until the model is created.

This SLM implant was the first of its kind for a turtle, and after two months of preparation, the operation was successful! Once the implant was fitted T3 was released back into the wild which made it the only sea-creature in the ocean with a metal jaw, and I’ll bet the area’s sea snails were absolutely terrified of the Terminator Turtle!

Mr. Stubbs, The Alligator With A Prosthetic Tail

In 2008, the cops in Casa Grande, Arizona pulled over a large truck with a broken taillight, and when they searched it, they discovered that it contained 32-alligators that were being kept illegally. All of these animals were seized and sent to the Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary, where the vets discovered that one of them was missing his tail due to a fight with another gator.

Alligators use their tails to balance when swimming, so when this poor gator entered water that was too deep he’d uncontrollably roll onto his back. The Sanctuary knew the gator needed specialist help to survive, so they named him Mr. Stubbs and took great care of him. But they wanted a more permanent solution to his disability, so in 2010, they contacted Dr. Marc Jacofsky from Arizona’s Centre for Orthopedic Research and Education to see if he could develop the world’s first prosthetic alligator tail.

Jacofsky teamed up with alligator experts and a 3D printing company called STAX3D, and this team started by using a professional-grade ARTEC scanner to scan the tail of a recently-deceased gator who was around Stubbs’s size. Then, they tweaked the scan with 3D modelling software to ensure it would perfectly fit onto the remaining parts of Stubbs’s tail.

Once the model was ready, they 3D-printed it with silicone, painted it, and in 2012, Stubbs finally got his tail back! He was able to swim and walk like a normal gator again, and the Sanctuary noted that as he grew larger over the course of his 50 to 60-year lifespan, he’d need lots of new tails printed.

But tragically these tails were never made, because after ten happy years at the sanctuary, Stubb’s drowned after being stung by a scorpion. Stubb’s untimely passing is an absolute bummer, but hey, at least he spent his last years swimming around freely, as his prosthetic let him live like a happy, fully-abled alligator!

Pitbull Takes Prosthetic Leg

When a dog loses a leg they can often get by on three, but it results in an unnatural weight-distribution that can lead to premature joint deterioration. This is why our old-friends at 3D-Pets specialize in creating prosthetics for dogs, and they make single-legs and wheeled carts for pups of all sizes.

This allows disabled dogs to move naturally and live healthy lives, like Luna, a Pitbull who was abandoned by her abusive owner after she lost a front-leg in a dog fight. Luckily, Luna was rescued by the Arizona Humane Society, before being adopted by her owners Bri and Bekah Wilson-Sommers in 2019.

At first Luna was great at moving around on 3-legs, but Pitbulls are heavy dogs, and as she grew she started to develop joint pain. So in 2022 Bri and Bekah contacted 3D-Pets, who explained their process. First, they send the owners a ‘Casting Kit’, so they can take a full mold of their dog’s body before mailing it back. Then, 3D-Pets take a scan of the mold and use it to model a 3D printed body-jacket and leg that fits the dog perfectly.

The custom prosthetic is printed and sent back to the owner, and as of July 12th 2022, Luna had four legs again! After a bit of practice she re-learnt how to walk around on all-fours, and 3D-Pets have used their technology to save countless pups in the same way!

The company almost exclusively works with dogs, but in 2021 they did create a cart for a pig called Tammy who lost her back-legs in an unknown incident. They printed a custom body-jacket and a set of wheels for the pig to let her move around independently, proving that when it comes to printable animal prosthetics, nobody cares more than 3D-Pets!

Cleopatra, The Tortoise

Some conditions are exclusive to certain types of animals. For example, brain-rot only occurs in TikTok obsessed teenagers, and pyramiding is an irreversible disorder in turtles and tortoises that causes the “tiles” on their shell to form peaks if they don’t eat enough Vitamin-D or calcium. Minor pyramiding isn’t a big-issue, but if the condition is untreated and the peaks continue to grow, it can leave the animal with severe pain, difficulty breathing, and even paralysis as it changes the shape of their spine!

So when Canyon Critters Rescue in Colorado came across an abandoned tortoise with serious pyramiding, they knew they had to take the animal in and improve its diet to stop it getting any worse. They named the tortoise Cleopatra, and managed to quickly stop further pyramiding. But their vets knew that Cleopatra’s spiky-shell had been severely weakened, so if it sustained further damage or if another tortoise climbed on top of her it could crack.

To prevent this, Canyon Critters asked a Denver-based company called the 3D Printing Store and the Colorado Technical University if they could work together to make her armor worthy of a queen. The team started by scanning Cleopatra’s shell, before using it to design a 3D-model. Then, they spent 600-hours tweaking this design to make sure it would fit all the contours of her natural shell, before finally printing it off and fitting it to her back.

This offered Cleopatra a huge amount of protection, and although her pyramiding can’t ever be reversed, it will ensure her shell never fully breaks and allow her to live into her 80s!

Balzak, The Walrus

Atlantic walruses were hunted to near-extinction between the 17th and 19th Centuries for the ivory in their tusks. So modern aquariums have taken them in to protect them from poaching and help preserve the species. However, this has led to a discovery that Walruses naturally use their tusks to pull themselves out of the water and help them walk on land, so if they live in a concrete enclosure their tusks can wear down and break.

This can be incredibly painful, but in 2020, the vets at the aquarium in Quebec, Canada came up with a solution. They took casts of the walruses’ tusks, then scanned them to 3D-model special caps that could protect them from scraping against the concrete. The caps had to be hardier than thermoplastic, so once the 3D-models were complete, they used SLM printing and a tough metal-alloy called cobalt chrome to create them.

The finished product was perfect, but anesthetic can be deadly for Atlantic Walruses, so, the vets had to fit the tusk-caps to their dangerously-powerful patients while they were still awake! Walruses don’t like their tusks being tampered with, so nine-out-of-ten dentists would agree that this was a very risky procedure. But, the aquarium workers spent 11-months training all the Walruses to sit still on command by rewarding them with treats.

Then, when it came time for the procedure, each creature stayed still for around 5-minutes and the dentists successfully fit the caps! Afterwards, the Walruses in the aquarium had sweet grilles that’d make your favorite rapper jealous, and more-importantly, they were finally able to explore their enclosure without any risk of dental damage!

Beauty And The Beak

Everybody loves a good fairytale, and some animal rescue stories come straight out of a childhood storybook, literally. In 2005, a Bald Eagle was rescued at a landfill in Alaska by a bird-rehabilitation facility, after her beak had been shot off by a poacher.

A bald eagle’s beak can grow back over a long period of time, but this eagle couldn’t eat or drink due to her injury, and she’d starve before it healed. So, the rehab-center hand-fed her to keep her alive and named her Beauty. But after 18-months, they ran out of space to house her, so they had to arrange for the eagle to be humanely euthanized.

This was a tragic end to Beauty’s story. But incredibly, Jane Veltkamp, the founder of a Idaho nonprofit called Birds of Prey Northwest, happened to be on vacation in Alaska at the time, and when she heard about Beauty she rescued the bird and took her back to Idaho.

She knew Beauty’s injury needed a unique treatment, so she assembled a team of dentists, vets and engineers to develop a 3D-printed beak. They took measurements from a female bald eagle’s skull and molds from the remains of Beauty’s beak to create the 3D model, before printing the finished product. Beauty’s beauty was restored in 2008, as the prosthetic fit perfectly, and after the operation she could immediately eat and drink on her own!

Bald Eagle Shot In The Face Gets 3D-Printed Beak | The Dodo Tech by The Dodo

Then, as Beauty’s real beak grew back it slowly pushed her prosthetic off, and eventually it was large enough that the fake-beak could be removed! Beauty was able to use her natural beak for the remainder of her life, until she passed away from natural-causes in 2024.

But her story lives on, as it was turned into an award-winning children’s book entitled Beauty and the Beak, to raise awareness about Eagle-poaching and printable-prosthetics, while sharing the tale of Beauty’s incredible rescue!

Derby, The Malamute

Every dog loves walkies, so when a puppy is born with a disability that means they can’t walk it’s pretty heartbreaking. Derby the malamute was born with deformed front legs, so his foster-owner Tara Anderson bought him a wheeled cart that allowed him to move around. But Derby grew to be a pretty big-dog, so his cart required large, heavy-wheels that meant he still couldn’t run or play like his friends.

Fortunately, Tara was a project manager at 3D-Systems; the company founded by the inventor of 3D-Printing Chuck Hull. They’d worked in huge-industries like aerospace and human prosthetics, so in 2014, Tara decided to use their talents to make Derby some new legs.

She and her colleagues 3D-scanned his body, before using modelling software to create a specialized prosthetic that his front-legs could slot into. They deliberately made them low-down to match his previous posture, and printed them in a “loop” shape, so they wouldn’t dig into the ground under his weight.

Incredibly, Derby was immediately able to comfortably run three miles every day, but his posture was still very unnatural, and Tara wanted to straighten-up his back. So, she developed some upgraded, nylon legs that flexed like normal knees, allowing Derby to stand at his full height and walk more naturally.

Taking Derby the Dog to New Heights with 3D Printing by 3D Systems

The design was a home-run, and today, Derby can go for walkies like any other dog, except he’s a cyborg, so he’s way cooler.

Project Shellter

Finding a decent apartment can be impossible, and it turns out the animal-kingdom’s housing market is pretty tough too. Hermit crabs are born without shells, so they need to find empty sea-snail shells to live in, to protect their soft-bodies from predators.

But on some beaches there aren’t enough to go around, so some hermit crabs have started living in trash that’s been left by humans instead. This disturbing sight comes with life-threatening consequences, as lots of these crabs get permanently stuck in their artificial shells due to their unnatural shape. Furthermore, the brightly-colored plastic trash can make the crabs easier for predators to spot.

So in 2011, the 3D-printer manufacturer MakerBot Industries started Project Shellter; an initiative where they designed 3D-models of plastic shells that their customers could print at home.

The shells were cheap and quick to print, and initially MakerBot wanted people to distribute them on beaches for wild hermit crabs. But they wanted to perfect the shape and size of the shells first. So they started by giving their designs away to the owners of pet hermit crabs to test them, and ensure that they would stop taking real shells from beaches that could be used by wild crabs instead.

Unfortunately, MakerBot was bought by a larger company in 2013 and there haven’t been any updates on Project Shellter since 2014, so it looks like the scheme has finished. But still, MakerBot’s 3D designs are available on the internet, so if you want, you can 3D-Print a plastic shell yourself and save a hermit crab from living in litter!

Saving The Rhino From Poachers With 3D Printing

In China, Rhinoceros horns are used in lots of traditional medicines to cure everything from food poisoning to demonic possession. So while poaching rhinos for their horns and trading them internationally is illegal, they’re worth up to $200,000 per pound on the black market, which makes the creatures prime targets for poachers.

This bloodthirsty industry means that several species of rhinoceros are critically endangered, and since 2015, a San Franciscan startup called Pembient has been attempting to protect them from poaching with 3D-printing technology. See, rhino horns are made of Keratin, and Pembient announced a plan to combine real ethically-sourced keratin and rhino DNA, before using the mixture as a material to 3D-print fake Rhinoceros horns.

These knock-off horns would be visually and genetically indistinguishable from the real thing, so Pembient would mass-produce them and flood the black-market to make rhino horns less rare and decrease their value. In theory, this would make poaching far less profitable, which would reduce the number of Rhinos being hunted. Furthermore, it would allow Chinese brands who create rhino-based medicines and food-products to use the ethically sourced 3D printed horns instead, further undermining the poaching industry.

The idea was brilliant, but unfortunately, Pembient ran out of funding in 2021 and they never figured out how to consistently 3D-print their keratin-DNA mixture. So, the black-market is still full of real rhinoceros horns. But Pembient are continuing to work on the project behind the scenes, and who knows, maybe one day 3D-printing could help end Rhino poaching for good!

I hope you were amazed at the 3D printing technology giving animals a second chance! Thanks for reading.