29th July 2023 –   we welcomed “Anouk” to Wombat Creek . She was brought here by her foster mother Charlie and friend Judy , our wombat co-ordinator , both stayed for a couple of nights.

Anouk arrives at Wombat Creek with Charlie

Charlie had raised Anouk from a tiny baby. Charlie lives in an apartment and it was time for Anouk to move on. She was in beautiful condition, loved her bottle, taking her time to feed. Its always hard to part but Charlie was happy Anouk was here and knew she would be released into good wombat country and would be well cared for and loved till that day came. 

I also had young  macropods  in care at the time which is very time consuming. The idea was Judy would pass on another young wombat Anouk’s age if one came into care so Anouk wouldn’t be on her own. Normally if I have 1 young wombat I will spend time taking it for short walks around the property and sit with it for periods of time after a milk feed as they like a cuddle being used to contact with wombat man constantly.  Anouk needed a friend to cuddle with .

My Transport bag for Anouk

A young wombat will be with mum in her pouch till about 7 months and weighs about 2 kilos . It may venture out of the pouch when mum is in the burrow always keeping close contact with its body touching hers. Between the 8th -10th month the youngster leaves the pouch permanently but some continue to suckle till about 15mths old. Independence is usually around about 18months. We release wombats from care between 20-25kilo depending on how they behave . They are about 22months old by this weight.

I was taking Anouk walking every day while waiting for company to arrive so she had someone to play with.

Eventually Judy found a carer down South who was overloaded with young wombats in care. She had two which had bonded and didn’t want to separate them, so it  was that Baby and Beastie both came to keep Anouk company, arrived here on the 11th Aug 2023. Baby had pneumonia when she came to care but had been nursed back to health when I took over her care, she was 4.7 kilo . Beastie  was bigger 5.1 kilo. they were both drinking milk morn & eve as was Anouk who was the same size as Baby. I gave them the names Baby and Beastie .Judy was horrified to hear one of them was called Beastie! Baby was a gentle little soul but Beastie was a robust party goer……   Anouk was very shy of both of them to begin with and I wondered if she was going to be on the outer.

My favourite niece , now in her 50s  was called Beastie as a term of endearment by family and I did explain this to Judy who was certain it must have had a detrimental phycological effect on her but I’m pleased to say it didn’t !!

Here is the original “Beastie” with Che wombat. Beastie & Che used to play chasing for up to an hour some days, Che loved it.

Suddenly  Beastie wombat developed laboured breathing and was unwell , she had developed pneumonia, which may have been my fault not taking enough care when feeding her her milk and she may have inhaled some into her lungs. It had to be treated so I had move her inside , kept her warm and medicated her twice a day with antibiotics. She wasn’t sick enough to be still and created chaos in the house! I made a make-ship  enclosure for her in the lounge which she totally destroyed within 48hrs and began running wild,  helter – skelter ,scaring the poor cat and knocking things over in her wake!! I had to move her into the spare room .She worked out how to open the sliding door and had a party in the lounge that night. I had to get Larry to put a lock on the door and allow her to party in there. It was a great relief when she recovered about a week later. 

She was able to go back in the pen with the  2 gentle souls ,Baby and Anouk, or so I thought. In the time I had been treating her  to get her well she became very bonded to me and wasn’t very interested in the other two who had become great friends.

best friends – Baby & Anouk

She proceed to bully them , jumping on them and chasing them into the burrow . I had to separate her into her own pen.

Beastie with her 2 bear friends. She would roll around with them but eventually she picked one she preferred !

Beastie and I spent many hours together roaming the hills , she grazing and I pulling out buckets of tiger pear. Baby and Anouk  were very happy being together.

It was ironical that the idea was to free up my time so I could have breaks in between looking after the little grey group but instead I ended up fulltime with them and Beastie taking up every other minute of my time. Beastie grew beautifully and soon knew her way all round the property. Larry took over the feeing and care of Baby and Anouk who also grew well .They were drinking 100mls of milk morn and eve until they lost interest in the eve bottle sometime in Nov and then gave up morning bottle in Dec. By April 2024 they were both about15 kilo.

Beastie  was weighed 24th Nov 2023 and was 12.9 kilo Beastie had the run of 3 wombat pens which have adjoining doors that can be opened to make a very large pen. She was about 16 kilo in March 2024.I was taking her out in the eve for about an hour walk but it was time to distance myself a bit . I opened the flap in Beastie’s pen a couple of months later even though she was smaller than I usually would release. She was very independent and knew her way around because of all the walking we had done together up and down the hills on the property. She learnt to use the flap to go in and out very quickly and a couple of weeks later I left it open at night.

Beastie using the flap to go in and out of her pen

She was going out and returning to the pen but she came back with some back scratches so she must have tried going down the wrong burrow !! Some wombats are more accommodating than others but she learnt this lesson without getting really hurt.

Beastie’s back scratches

I locked the flap until her scratches healed and then let her out again. I saw her on the night vision camera a couple of times but she very quickly stopped returning to the burrow and I feel sure she would have done well. By the time she left it was about July 2024.

Baby and Anouk were starting to dig up their burrow by then, showing signs of wanting out. They had been kept in the pen in our front yard and they had a lot of wombats and macropods coming and going to that yard so they were familiar with  having other animals around. We opened their flap in August thinking they would probably stick around for a while but as always you can never predict what an animal will do! They both went off and didn’t return. We had cameras out in the yard but never saw them. We did quite a bit of walking around to try and find them. A couple of weeks later we put out 12 cameras in many different places away from the house paddock where wombat burrows were. We saw quite a few wombats, all in good condition, but couldn’t say with any certainty that 2 could have been them but its all together possible as we saw wombats about their size and certainly didn’t find any injured ones anywhere.

Once Anouk, Baby and Beastie had been released I felt that I had done my bit for taking in juvenile wombats from others and decided that was enough unless I got the opportunity to raise two babies together  and see them through to adulthood.

Katie has had her second baby , now back riding . Here’s a pic I took earlier today. Have to spoil her !!

Katie with 2nd baby, now back riding.

Tues 30th July 2022  I collected a baby /juv possum from Merriwa vet. She had been found alone in Singleton by a MOP with no parent in sight and taken to the vet. She was checked over and appeared to be in good health.  One of our carers collected her but  was not keen to have her in care so I agreed to take her. She was transported to our town vet. I called her Katie after Kate the girl who transported her. That has now changed to “Naughty Katie”  as she would give me a good bite and scratch if she could! I do pass her a piece  of apple when I take her fruit bowl in in the eve but am careful about my fingers.

I had her in a large cage .She was eating her fruit and  some native vegetation which was also in the cage and drinking her milk formula.

Katie in her cage

I have cared for many possums when in Sydney as they were always losing their habitat to human expansion , car collisions and humans not wanting to share their yards. Possums are opportunists and will eat avocados ,roses , parsley and the like and some humans don’t like sharing. Possums in care will eat their fruit before their natives!

I loved having possums in my yard when I lived in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. Out here in the bush we have possums living around the house. I love seeing them running around at night. We don’t get possums coming into care from out here .If I have 1 in care its come from a town area.

Katie was moved into her outdoor aviary about 5 days after coming into care.

 Fri Sep 8th  2022—760grams – She is loving the space in the aviary , comes out of her box about dusk eats then explores. All the native flowers are out now so Katie has a great choice of munchies. She loves roses and my friend Jenny brings some from her garden.

Native flowers for Katie

The native flowers also look lovely in a vase on my dining table.

Katie continued to grow well. She was a lovely girl.

By the end of Oct she weighed 1335 grams . Big enough to be released . She continued to stay around , going in and out of the opening in the roof of the aviary which has a large tree trunk which takes her straight into the big mulberry tree growing there. She was a big muncher of mulberry leaves. Eventually Katie stopped retuning to the avairy and then we found she had moved into  possum box which was in Larry’s shed and had a big belly!! She became special to us and we spoil her with fruit . She had her first baby .

Katie and Bub

14th  Dec 2023

In the morning of dec 2023 I got a call from Alba, a neighbour about 10k away also living on Cullingral Rd. She has two Maremma dogs. The younger one is a bit of a handful and makes a habit of pouncing on unsuspecting birds.

The  dog had pounced on this young female bird pulling out all her long tail feathers. Red-rump parrots feed mainly on the ground .they feed on native grass seeds and have also developed a taste for introduced seeds of weeds. The male has a noticeable red rump , the female is darker , a plainer olive colour.

A pair of Red-Rump Grass Parrots

I put the little female into a large shade cage then began making some calls to see if anyone else might have one in care. Being a flock bird, I was not happy about having her alone. No one in our wildlife group had one in care but the lovely Belinda Wilson had young rosellas that she had cared for from babies.  She had one that had begun cracking seed so we decided that my red-rump could be buddied with her. I delivered the bird to Belinda. They made friends so Belinda was going to keep them in care together till ready for release.

Belinda is very caring person .When I last spoke with her, she had just taken on 2 young donkeys that needed a home!

Jan 19th 2023

I got a call from Merriwa Vet  to say MOP had set fox traps on his property because chooks and ducks were being preyed on. The traps he used were antiquated and made illegal some years ago. A very cruel way of trapping. The teeth on these traps clamp down on the foot of the animal or in the case of a goanna onto the body. This man has lived in Merriwa all his life and is well known in the community. His daughter was once the local vet! She was a very nice woman. Her passion was with horses although she would assist with wildlife when she could. Her knowledge of treatment for wildlife was limited but she was able to advise and supply us with various medications as required. The farmer using the traps was in his 90s and did as his father did before him!!  He had trapped an endangered  Spotted-tail Quoll. He did realise what it was and had the decency to call the local vet and get the animal in there. One front and one back foot  got caught in trap. The animal must have been in total shock as how he managed to release the trap off his legs single handed is amazing. Spotted- tails Quolls are an endangered species. He could have put meat bait into a possum trap and caught the animal without inflicting the pain and suffering. Spotted-tailed Quolls  are the largest of all the Australian quolls and the only mammals that that have a spotted tail. There are  three other Australian quolls but none with a spotted tail, spots on the body only. Spotted -tail Quoll  are carnivorous and eat small to medium sized mammals and birds. Females grow up to 4kilo but males up to 7kilo.

Spotted -Tail Quoll

Many years ago, Larry & I went to Tasmania. We had not started rescue and rehabilitation of wildlife and weren’t familiar with many species. We went outside one cold morning and saw this creature on top of the wood pile. We offered some fruit and bread only to be scorned .We did see the size and shape of the teeth so offered bacon  which was taken and enjoyed…yum yum. We then identified it as a Quoll. I can’t remember which particular one it was, but we were enthralled at seeing it.

We went into Merriwa town and collected the poor trapped creature from the vet. I made some ph calls after bringing him home to find out our best course of action. Fortunately, I was able to get hold of Ted who advised us to give some Metacam pain meds. Which we did by squirting into his mouth with a syringe. We had chicken necks so put a couple of those into his cage. The next day along with Ted & Jenny we drove to Dubbo Western plains zoo with “Quollie”. They took him into care where he remained until early March. His wounds were treated by professionals with the proper facilities to enable this care.  1 wound was to the bone, necrotic tissue was removed but some was ligament and muscle so final movement depended on healing. Fortunately ,he made a complete recovery and was able to be released.

Ted & Jenny had a contact in Local Landcare  with a large parcel of land for Conservation and arranged for the release there. He was released at  “Spring Hills” Merriwa.

Thanks to David & Maria Cameron for allowing this.

Tues 22nd November 2022,  I received into my care a baby wombat weighing 140grams     I named him  “Tyke”

Little Tyke on intake 140grams

Caring for wildlife has its joys and sadness. It is important to talk about failures in order to come to terms and also in the hope it might help other animals and carers .If in hindsight you can pinpoint what went wrong that’s good but sometimes things remain a mystery as in this case which is mind torturing, wondering why?

Tyke’s mum had been hit by a car. A very sensible MOP checked the pouch and removed the baby. She kept him warm and got him to me asap.

I started him on Formula 1 weak strength  then worked up to normal strength over 3-4 days, also adding impact to his formula. I used a glass syringe to feed him as I prefer glass to plastic for hygiene .Also glass does not stick like plastic and so much easier to get the smallest amounts in to avoid inhalation to the lungs

Tyke on intake

Tyke face

Tyke  was a perfect little guy ,passing urine & faeces, all good .7 days after intake I moved him onto wombaroo  < 0.4  By Dec 1^st he had a weight gain of 100grams weighing 240grams.

The hardest part was keeping the temperature even between 28% – 30%. I have become better at this over time . An incubator is not an option for me as we are on solar power out here in the bush. The weather this time of the year has been quite crazy out here .In the past when I have had furless wombats unable to thermoregulate I have had to use ice blocks to keep the temperature down .With Tyke it was necessary to use heat to keep the temperature up for quite some time. Now it is extremely hot out here, but this has only happened in the past couple of weeks.

Everything progressed very well, and Tyke hit the 292gram mark  on Dec 18^th. I started his transition to wombaroo 0.4 which went over 6 days . He was looking great and his development going well visually .

Tyke 1st Dec 240grams -a little ball of muscle

I was staying connected with Judy to report his development but had not called  to tell her I was transitioning Tyke as I never doubted what I was doing . However, Judy tells me that had she known she would have got me to keep him on the <0.4  for some time longer. Although she does not believe this in any way would have caused him to die.

When I weighed Tyke after transition, he had lost weight , dropping 7grams, now 285grams. I was surprised as he certainly looked fabulous and faeces and urine all good . I thought he would soon make it up and move fwd. I also at this point tried him with a bottle and teat but it seemed to me his sucking was weaker not stronger, so I continued with the syringe and teat which to me was not unusual for a little guy his size to still need syringe feeding.  The temperature had risen a lot and it was hot, but I kept the ambient temperature between 28-30% , kept a firm eye on it so if it went over 30% moved quickly to correct it. Even so I also thought this might be affecting him as he did not seem as robust, but I was not unduly worried at this point. He continued to take all his feed over the 24hr period.

Tyke looking fabulous, fur showing under skin, ears up, eyes open

On the 27th of Dec Tyke had his normal 1.45am feed .when I got him up at 6.30am to feed him he was dead. I called my friend Ted Finnie (retired  Taronga wildlife vet ) and took Tyke straight to him for post-mortem.

Tyke had no obvious internal problem of which I was aware. He had his fur showing under his skin , ears up and eyes partially open. His bottom incisors had come through and top  had started to erupt. His physical development was good. Ted determined the cause of death was cardio myopathy . Tyke’s heart was small, but Ted detected some discoloration in a spot which indicated to him the that the aorta was not  pumping blood efficiently round the body. He also detected a small dark patch on the brain which he said tied in with that finding. I cannot explain that to you with more clarity as my understanding is only very superficial.

Post- mortem is inconclusive, but Ted is an “Expert” ( not so called!) so as conclusive as we can get. Why did this happen , we do not know. The death stays a mystery .All the other organs in Tykes body were good.

Ted thought the cause might be a lack of vitamin E deficiently which could be something lacking in the milk formula. This idea was given only as a suggestion ,with unfurred joeys, in the future try using some Vitamix liquid which is a mix of vitamin A D & E. It cannot hurt them but will be taken up if they need it.

The last pic I have of Tyke the day before he died. He was next to me on the couch .It was hot, and he wriggled out of his bag and was lying alongside my thigh. He is in a very relaxed wombat position!!

Tyke wriggled out of his bag and was lying alongside my thigh. He is in a very relaxed wombat position!!

Thankyou Judy (Judith Hopper senior wombat co ordinator Hunter Wildlife)  for your support and trust, it means a lot .

July 19th 2022

In in the years we have been rescuing and rehabilitating  native birds we  never had an Owlet -nightjar come into care .One of the most common and widespread of Australia’s nocturnal birds, the smallest found here. It occurs throughout Australia and its islands, as well as southern New Guinea.

We had a call from a guy we know in town. He and a crew had been wood chopping and a bird had fallen from a tree hollow. It was stunned so they put it in a box and kept it warm and called us when they got back to town saying they had a baby kookaburra that need care. I went into town to collect it. It was tiny , much smaller than a feathered baby kooka would have been.

It weighed a meagre 36grams. The right shoulder had a graze and bruising but no apparent breaks and was quite feisty!

The preferred habitat of the Australian Owlet-nightjar is a tree-studded area where there are suitable hollows. During the day it roosts in hollow branches and tree trunks. The birds form permanent bonds, and pairs occupy the same territory throughout the year. The bird came from about 100k away from us in the thick of bushland and that’s where it needed to be returned to.

That tucker is O.K.!

Seeing animals that you have raised from babies return briefly to show you how well they doing makes it all worthwhile. Duke (already named when passed to me) & The Worm (named because she was a wriggler) were here as babies and raised together. They came in at the end 2017 and were free living  in early 2019.

Duke and Worm free living but still hanging around the homestead.

Nov 2019 Wormie came for a brief visit with a baby in the pouch and Duke also. Duke was to young to have fathered a baby but he had clearly found Worm.

Wormie visits with baby in pouch and Duke in tow !

So wonderful to see that despite losing her own mother she had become one and was successful. She returned again in 2020 and 2021.

Worm with baby at heel

A beautiful healthy baby

Then sometime later night visit , look at that big baby now and big mama!

We still see Duke who is a big buck now and also Billy who is enormous . Billy is about 12 years old now and appears occasionally and sometimes Duke is with him ” the bachelors ” .

Baby Billy

Billy now – just thought id pop in and eat some of this grain , as I remember it was quite good stuff!

After the swampies came Sam was alone and I had him back in the smaller pen in the house paddock. I felt very sorry that he was alone . Jo, one of my very capable  colleagues who lives in Singleton and cares for many macropods offered to give me two greys that were around the 4500gram weight. Smaller than Sam who about 6500 grams at this stage ,but they would have been O.K. I was to nervous to bring any more greys here at that time so I declined , now I think I should have ……… I tried introducing Sammy to the swampies.Sammy seemed to like them but they were so small by comparison and they were nervous when he was around .They clearly speak a different language .If I took Sam into the pen they would become unsettled so I decided it wasn’t a good idea. Sam wasn’t locked up during the day if I was home  and he knew when I would go into the swampies to feed them. I often tried to sneak in but he always sniffed me out and he would hop around the outside. It was sometimes distressing for me and clearly for Sam but I thought once I came out and took him off for a nice long bush walk which he loved he would be fine.

Sam bush walk march 2022

It did appear that he was O.K. as he continued to thrive and looked beautiful and healthy. By the end of March Sam was almost 10kilo.

Sam March 2022

Suddenly he  began to show signs of decline .It started by not drinking all his milk. As he was almost 10kilo and I thought he was weaning (I’ve never had a grey that weaned themselves before but had heard that it does happen) A week later and he wasn’t drinking at all .I thought maybe thrush but wasn’t really convinced. .I tried Nilstat for 4 days but no improvement and in that short time he was eating hardly any grass and no support food. I got a gram stain done and found he had intestinal thrush. Treated with fluconazole as per directions for macropods. Despite that treatment he became thinner and weaker ,lost 2.5 kilo in a matter of days and refused to eat at all. I tried various foods  with a syringe .

Beautiful Sam sleeping in the sun March 2022

Sam sick , lost condition , quickly. He was very thirsty but could hardly stand and hop by now.

Ted continued to do gram stains and no thrush was eventually present in his poo. Ted could hear his heart was not beating as it should. He could hardly stand and also developed mild inhalation pneumonia even though I had tried to be very careful. He received a 3 day acting antibiotic injection but showed no improvement and still refused to eat. The day he died he could not stand . Ted did a post mortem which showed vitamin E deficiency, pneumonia in his lungs and white muscle disease due to lack of exercise. Kidney and liver O.K. at that stage. He had extremely bad thrush at the very back of his tongue. In conclusion I believe that due to lack of experience I did not pick up he was sick when he stopped drinking all his milk. If I had and acted sooner I may have saved him. Also he must have been very stressed without me realizing. Stress is a bad enemy of greys.He had to be moved to a smaller pen when the others in his group got cocci and died but he still had a friend then who I thought was going to pull through but she didn’t. I used to take him walking and he was semi free range spending lots of time in the house yard and bush walking with me.Lots of red-kneck wallabies live in and around our house paddock so Sam did have other macropods around all the time. Red-necks and greys can be raised in an enclosure together .I could sometimes hear Sam running up and down the outside of the swampie enclosure when I was in there. It must have been more stressing for him than I realised. I feel absolutely wretched and in hindsight can see all the things I did wrong. It never crossed my mind that a 10 kilo grey looking so robust would get thrush . If I had taken the 2 smaller greys from Jo maybe things would have turned out better but the fear of them getting cocci also kept me from bringing them here.

last picture of Sammy

Sam could have picked up thrush from spores but I think given what he had been through , losing all his friends and Nikki who he had been with since about 2 kilo then having to share me with the swampies was to much stress. I probably should have just kept him and given him total attention.I did my best and nursed him around the clock for the last 3 weeks but it was not good enough.

Sammy died on Mon 4th April 2022. I still feel so very sad when I think of him, frequently. I miss him. I’m so sorry beautiful boy.

(apologies to Frederic Weatherly)

I used to sing this to Sammy when we were walking /hopping

My Beautiful Sammy

19 Jan 2022 – 3 Swamp Wallabies  were coming to us from Judy –  Hunter Wildlife .

Only two ended up here on that day as Kei had a broken foot which had still not healed and had to stay in smaller confinement with Judy till her foot healed. Kashik, a male  weighed  2820grams and Kadifie ,a female 2890grams.

Kashik with mum Judy on intake.

Finally some hair.

They were drinking milk  morning and evening. Swamp Wallabies eat native browse so a bucket in the centre of the shed was set up full of all the clippings they like to eat. Some favourites are Casuarina,  Kurrajong and   Melaleuca. Their top favourite is River Willow  considered a notorious pest by some but has another role now. As the climate has got warmer for temperature-sensitive animals, their dense, leafy canopy may make willows the lesser of two evils .

Is that all for us?

May as well tuck in then.

I had never had Swampies in care before so wasn’t sure what to expect. These two were going into the large pen that the Greys had been in when they got cocci. Swampies are not susceptible to cocci like Greys which is why I agreed to take them.

The pen had been set up for Greys so it was fortunate Judy came and explained Swamp Wallaby  behaviour.

Kashik & Kadifie

We immediately had to completely fill in any gaps , tiny as they were, under gates or at the sides off. These little creatures are fast and expert escape artists,  also experts at hiding. Consequently the pen should be set up so they have “hides” and ideally  should have long grasses. The grass in the pen was short, ideal for grazing greys. Larry constructed some hides and dragged enormous logs into the pen for them to jump on and over. Once the grass grew they loved it and began hiding under it and could not be found if that’s what they choose!!

The fences surrounding the pen are 6′  high and the gate which closes off the smaller area to the large pen is 4′. The pen is approx. 75metres square.When the 4′ gate is closed the area encompassing the shed is approx. 30x15metres. Their shed in this area  approx. 6×3 metres. Initially we kept them in the part of the pen which housed their shed and could be closed off by the 4′ gate. This was until they accepted me as mum and would come from the larger area once they heard me come in with their bottles. It took a couple of weeks and they settled in well then had the run of the entire pen coming to their shed for bottles or almonds! All macropods and wombats we have had in care love raw almonds. They also had a hide in the shed which was a table with a large towel draped around it! Kashik used the table top more to leap up and down rather than the hide , show off!

Do ya think I’m cute?

Eventually Kei’s foot healed with Judy’s patient TLC. Judy was worried about Kei coming as she had been confined for so long and had not been able to be transferred at the correct time. Would the other 2 accept her again as part of the group and how would she adjust to me being older than desirable for a carer change?The 1st of March Judy came with Kei and stayed a couple of nights to try and get her settled.The 3 of them were all around 3500 grams at the time .They were all still drinking morn & eve bottles. We closed off the gate thinking it would be best to keep Kei in the smaller area to begin with so we could see her .We thought Kashik & Kadifie wouldn’t like being confined   to the smaller area but they seemed fine. Kei wouldn’t come near  Judy after she was set free in there.Judy tried everything to get her to drink her bottle but she refused.There was lots of grass and native browse in there so we thought she would be O.K. Lots of people wean their macropods before I do. I prefer to keep them drinking their formula for as long as possible as I believe it’s good for them. After a couple of days  Judy had to leave and trusted I would do my best with Kei. Once Judy had gone  the heavy rain started, thunder booming and lightning striking for a couple of days and nights.Swampies don’t mind the wet   but they are startled by loud noises.When I went in the next day, no Kei!. She had obviously jumped the 4 ft gate . I did find her after  extensive searching and spent the next week crawling around on my belly to make sure I wasn’t a tall intimidating figure, with outstretched arm holding her milk bottle toward her. After persevering she accepted the bottle and loved drinking her milk again. I can’t say it was a very comfortable experience for me but it paid off and a week later she was coming to the shed with the other 2 for her milk and accepted me as her carer. Bribing her with almonds helped!! I have to say it made me happy and I felt pleased with my efforts.Occasionally they were allowed a bad treat!

Forbidden bread!

Just around this time my Sammy became very ill. A terrible time which I will write about in my next post.

By mid April the 3 Ks all aprox. 5650grams , all still on morn & eve milk but no longer liked being picked up and weighed.

By mid June they were only on a small amount of evening milk then a couple of weeks totally  weaned.All around the 7kilo mark and ready to go free.

Big juvenile, ready to go.

I released them early in July .Kashik hung around for a day then disappeared. The girls never left the pen till night time and we never saw them after that for about 4 weeks.

One morning I looked out the window and there was 1 of them in the front yard. I went out with almonds and called .It was Kei and she came over to me and ate several almonds. I had a repeat that eve and the next morning but haven’t seen her since.

Kei visits – Would you like some almonds?

Yes please, yum ,yum , missed my almonds!

We have spotted another one in the adjoining paddock and Larry saw two of them at dusk moving like streaked lightning past the front of the house and enter their old pen. All the gates are open so they can come and go as they please. They are obviously all thriving and enjoying their return to the wild.!

NEWS FLASH !! Kei comes home to visit  Aug 2022  Kashik & Kadifie  spotted across the river Nov 2022

2 of the Ks spotted across the river

Kei comes home for a visit Aug 2022

Hello Mum, yes, Id like an almond !