Peek-a-boo

We try to handle the animals as little as possible so they don't get to used to us. It seems to be working.



Clive knows it's dinner time, but he's not coming out of his drey until some food is put in his cage and I'm not standing there scaring him with a great big camera.

He has a habit now of peering around the corner at us like he is here. Of course once there's fresh food in the cage, all bets are off. He'll fight you for a nice piece of bok choi.

An update

We've been a bit slack with this blog just lately, mainly because we've both got assignments and other priorities. After getting home from work or TAFE and spending an hour feeding all the animals we generally just want to relax.

Donna wrote about Lucky the other day, and the fact he still hasn't been released, but what about the other animals?

Clive, Widdle and Puke are all growing quickly and eating just about everything we give them. Donna decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time to weigh the ringtails just to make sure they aren't putting on weight too quickly or too slowly.

There's two problems with this idea. Firstly, it's best to handle them as little as possible so as to reduce stress and not get them too used to humans. Secondly, the little buggers bite, painfully. Donna has now decided they don't need weighing, we can tell by looking at them if they're too thin or too fat..

We've also had a few other animals come into care in the past few weeks.

We had a young dove that had flown into someones back window and concussed itself. It spent the night at our place and was released back where it came from the next afternoon. After releasing the dove, we went and picked up a sick Galah, also a juvenile. This one was severely undernourished. It spent a couple of nights with us and was then passsed onto Natasja, our co-ordinator and bird expert. Unfortunately, it died a couple of days later.

A week later we got called out to pick up a young ringtail possum that had been attacked by a dog. On first inspection it turned out to be a brushtail, not a ringtail. She was in a pretty bad way, so we took her to the nearest 24 hour vet in our area. We were told there that the bite had only punctured the first layer of skin and that it was mainly a case of shock. It turned out there was more too her injuries than that, we suspect internal injuries. Needless to say, even though she managed to eat some mashed up banana when we got her home, she didn't make it through the night.

We did get a call to pick up a sugar glider last Thursday, but neither of us were at home. By the time we got the message someone else would have been found to pick it up. I'd love to look after a sugar glider, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just another young brushtail.

Lucky??????????????Not

We have a possum named lucky. We have had lucky for a long time, I think too long. He needs to be released, he should have been released back in November before we went on holidays, but because he has been in our care for a long period of time and has had some major health issues, he's become used to us, we are at a loss as to what to do with him. Bottom line, he needs to be released, or at least moved on away from our influence.

Tonight he just about his destroyed his cage with broken branches and shelves etc. we are at our wits ends as to what to do with him. No release site has been found for him yet. I feel for him every night, he is too big to be in care anymore. There has to be somewhere he can go. He is healthy now, but because he has been in our care for so long he is to used to us, so he needs someone else to take him on before release so he becomes more wild. That is not happening. I so want to go out side and release him here but it is not viable as we have to many brushtail possums in the area and a dog. AGHHHHHHHHHHH. I am getting as frustrated as he is. The bottom photo above is when he was at his worst. The two photos above at his best and how he is now.