May 2023  I had just released 2 brushtail possum males and thought I have a breather.

I received a call from Jen , our wonderful macropod coordinator who seems to have so much energy I’m totally in awe. She constantly has many macs in care up to 12 at one time , probably more but I don’t always know how many she has. She cares for larger injured ones and babies till she can find somewhere to move them on to. I have great admiration for her .I certainly couldn’t do what she does.

Jen asked me if I could take a little Grey female whose mum had been killed by a car in Singleton.

Poor little orphan Tamaya – not well

The baby in pouch was furless and had received a hit as well. She had a bloody nose and bad bruising but Jen had nursed her for a week and felt she was now doing O.K. I agreed to take her. The little female was transported from Greta to Louise in Muswellbrook. It made the journey of collecting her a bit shorter. It’s a two hour drive from here to Muswellbrook and about an hour from Greta to Muswellbrook. Living in rural areas we all live some distance from each other.

She had swelling , bruising, some blood discharge from the nose, scrapes on her tail, and very noisy constricted breathing. Jen had cleaned out her nostrils and had her on a small dose of meloxicam for pain relief.

I had to give her a name and decided to name her after one of the wonderful carers who was looking after my dear friend Bunny.

Bunny nursing Swampie “Kashik”

You might remember Bunny from previous stories. She was marvellous with all the wildlife and had done a 3 year course in animal husbandry in Sydney. She financially supported the building of pens and aviaries here at Wombat Creek. Very sadly, she got dementia but with home help  I managed to keep her in her own home for as long as possible until she was accepted into  Strathearn House in Scone into one of their very well run and staffed dementia cottages .I used to bring her home every month for a 3-4 day visit which she loved. Tamaya was a wonderful woman who was predominately in charge of Bunny’s care so I named this little grey female after her in her honour.

Tamaya was 730 grams when she came to me  and was having 6 milk formula feed every 24hrs. Jen had worked her magic and she was feeding well. This continued for the following week but then her sucking started to slow and her breathing a bit more laboured. She was out stretching her front claws which usually indicates pain. Her faeces were green and to soft. Also she was at teething age. I suspected she had thrush so I stated Nilstat for oral thrush. I determined she had internal thrush so started her diflucan. A couple of days she started sucking well again .I gave her some a very small amount of codeine ( as taught to me by Ted Finnie, ex Taronga Zoo wildlife vet, this works for pain and also lose poo)  This worked and I also used SM33 for her gums as you do with babies.

By the 1st week in June Tamaya was completely well . I did sometimes notice that her breathing was a bit noisy but I was sure this was to do with the bang to her face/nose. I monitored this till I knew she was O.K.

Then another call from Jen………  enter Tobias !!

Dec 2023 – Tamaya doing well .In her pouch with friend Duncan red- neck wallaby!

Beautiful Tamaya
Dec 2024