Stumpy the Duck and other unique animal friends

Stumpy is a lovely little yellow bloke with something extra!

Here is the story from South Coast Today:

LONDON — Webbed feet run in Stumpy's family, but he's the first to have four of them. A rare mutation has left the eight-day-old duckling with two nearly full-sized legs behind the two he runs on. Nicky Janaway, a duck farmer in New Forest, Hampshire, 95 miles southwest of London, showed the duckling to reporters Saturday.

"It was absolutely bizarre. I was thinking 'he's got too many legs' and I kept counting 'one, two, three, four,'" Janaway said.

Stumpy would probably not survive in the wild, but Janaway, who runs the Warrawee Duck Farm in New Forest, says he is doing well. "He's eating and surviving so far, and he is running about with those extra legs acting like stabilizers," Janaway said.

The mutation is rare, but cases have been recorded across the world. One duckling named Jake was born in Queensland, Australia, in 2002 with four legs but died soon after.

Some animal mutations I have known:

As a child, my family owned chickens and we'd go to the feed store. The owners bred rabbits. One bunny was born with five legs. The feed store owner said they'd wait until it was older and then have a vet amputate the extra leg, which was growing from its belly area.

This is my rabbit, Daria, who does not have five legs. She is a Netherland Dwarf. She weighs about two pounds. She didn't appreciate the camera flash.

For a brief time two years ago, I had a kitten named Charlie, whose back legs had never worked. He pulled himself along by his front legs. His owner, a nurse with whom I used to work, was planning on putting him to sleep by overdosing him on insulin since she couldn't afford to take him to the vet to have him euthanized. (He was born to her cat.) I thought I'd give Charlie a chance. The vet said that it would be best to have the non-functional legs amputated when he got older and told me that although Charlie seemed ok at the time the organs in his lower extremities might be compromised. Charlie pulled himself along quickly on his front legs and got along well with my other cats, especially Leon who would pin Charlie down and clean him.

Sadly, Charlie's kidneys and digestive system did fail. He died one night while I was at work. But I kind of think he had a fun life while he was with us.

Here is Leon with his good friend Emrald. Sadly I don't have a picture of Charlie to share.