We receive many joey brushtail possums in care. They arrive in care mainly because their mum has been hit by a car and killed. Ted was found lying on his dead mum’s body by the road. Ted was protected from injury inside the pouch but as mum’s body went cold, he crawled out and sat on her waiting. Joeys cannot regulate their temperature so Ted very quickly started to get cold and decline. Luckily a member of the public was walking their dog and spotted the dead mum. He also found the cold and almost lifeless Ted lying on top of her. He thought Ted was dead! Luckily he picked Ted up, wrapped him in a towel for warmth and called us!
I received Ted into care and placed him in a warm pouch in a humidicrib! Slowly he started to warm up. Ted was then checked for injuries and weighed. Weighing every animal helps me determine their stage of development and age. Ted is around 4 months old.
The first three days in care are the most important. During this time, regardless of the best care being provided, an animal can just give up! The trauma, the loss of mum, initially being cold or not wanting an artificial teat and formula can exhaust any animal and they just die. But if they survive the first few days, their chance of survival increases and I can relax, a little!
Luckily Ted is a fighter! He accepted each bottle, slowly gained weight and accepted me as his new mum. He often sits and stares at me as if he notices that I don’t look like the animal he crawled out from! Maybe he wonders where his ‘real mum’ has gone. During one of my zoom meetings during the pandemic, Ted sat and started at me from his himidicrib! He wanted to come and join me!
Ted has four bottles a day – one every six hours. After a few days he started accepting small bits of fruit as well which is another good sign. He loves banana!
Perk a boo! Ted just showing how cute he is!
I’ll be blogging more about Ted soon so you can follow his journey to release. You can also follow him on Instagram wombats_and_wildlife_heljan09.
Thank you for your interest in and care for our wildlife! Feel free to share a link to my blog with other animal lovers but all images are copyrighted. 🐾🐾
Working with Australian Wildlife - Helen Hardy 