Students create 3D prosthetic foot for Peg the duck

ARMOREL, Ark. (KAIT/NNS) - A duck in Arkansas was lucky to get the foot that fit the bill.

Peg the duck is an 8-month-old Indian Runner duck

Peg's foot was bitten off by a turtle and he's lived with a deformed leg ever since.

"We found Peg sitting on the bank," Smith said. "Evidently a turtle had bitten his foot off."

The duck had been doing okay, but as he grew, the injured foot started to bother him.

But his owner, Patsy Smith reached out to a group of local 8th-graders to help her put Peg back on his feet.

Now the duck is showing off his new 3D prosthetic foot.

The students spent months designing and printing 3D foot for Peg.

"We thought it was just going to be a shaft with a hole in it connected to a foot but it was much more complicated than that," student Matthew Cook said.

Until they finally found the perfect fit.

"The very first model which was not very good, that was what we were learning and from now it is a completely different process," a facilitator at the lab said.

The owners say peg is doing well and is finally able to walk and run freely.

"Well not only is it heartwarming but it is exciting and I am just so grateful that there are people that truly care and they have gone out of their way to do all they can to make it as comfortable," Smith said.