After raising countless baby birds, and expressing interest
in 'furries' to our Marsupial Coordinator, finally the call
came. A baby possum had been rescued from its dead mothers
pouch (another road victim), and taken to the local vet
surgery. The baby possum was very cold, so it would be a
couple of hours until we could collect her. In the meantime
we set about preparing for the arrival.
We set up the heat pad, selected the smallest 'pouches',
and took a sixty kilometre round trip to get the special
possum milk and teats. Now it was time to pick up our new
baby, a female, we decided to name her Fern.
This little creature, about 90 days old and weighing only
130 grams, looked nothing like a possum. She was all legs,
tail, and head ~ barely furred.
The 'pouches' we had were all too big, so I set about making
small calico ones, which we then put inside a bigger 'pouch'
for warmth.
When she was suitably warm, we tried the first feed. Not
that simple. She disliked the possum teats, so we tried
just using a syringe (minus needle). No good, more milk
was ON the possum than IN the possum. There had to be an
easier way. Would she lap from a spoon? Eureka! She graduated
from the spoon to a small bowl.
Three weeks on, Fern is venturing out of the pouch to explore
her box. Occasionally she is sleeping on top of her pouch
when we go to feed her. Soon it is time to introduce solid
food, we put slivers of apple and carrot inside her pouch,
but it is some days before she is tempted to try them.
Fern is growing well, a bigger box with suspended pouch
provides more room for exploring, and eliminates the need
to handle her for feeding. We did, however, allow her out
of her box for some exercise, but as it is a possum's 'want'
to climb trees, we became a good substitute. Not good when
wearing shorts ~ ouch! It is obviously time for a cage with
some branches for her to climb on. Fern spends most of the
day sleeping in her pouch, which hangs on the side of the
cage. She is self feeding, and peeks out of the pouch at
feed times. Milk is still a large part of her diet, but
she is coping with larger slices of apple and carrot, and
fresh eucalypt tips. Grapes are a treat.
Our Marsupial Coordinator is concerned because a young
possum needs the company of another, so as it knows it is
a possum, and unusually, there are no others in the group
at this time. A few weeks later another orphaned baby possum
comes into our care, her mother another road victim. Daisy
is more traumatised and needs subcutaneous fluids. Our experience
of early feeding difficulties with Fern serves us well,
and Daisy laps possum milk from a spoon straight away.
It is some weeks before we can introduce the possums to
each other. When we do, there is much hissing from Daisy.
They live in separate cages, side by side, for a while.
Fern is getting too big for her cage indoors, so we decide
to move her to an aviary size cage outside, with a possum
box affixed to the side, and lots of branches to climb.
Feeding is difficult at first. As we approach the cage at
feed times, front paws and a pink nose appear at the entrance
hole of the possum box. As we enter the cage with the food,
Fern is quick to climb aboard, but in time she becomes more
interested in the food than us, which is good as we need
to distance ourselves from her in preparation for release
back into the wild.
As time goes by there is no sign of Fern each day until
dusk, she has become completely nocturnal.
One night we are alerted to possum 'communication' in the
garden. On investigation we observed a large male possum
on the top of the aviary. We approached the aviary and the
male appeared nonplussed about our existence. Fern was having
a wonderful time showing off in front of, what we could
only assume, was her 'boyfriend'.
Daisy is weaned now, and with some intrepidation we put
her in the aviary with Fern. There is much curiosity, but,
thankfully, no fighting. In the morning they are curled
up together in the possum box. Success. Now we have two
pink noses peeking out.
