The Rescue: Thursday 7 April 2011

Ahhh, day one of school holidays. Well teachers get pretty excited about school holidays too, you know. And it had been a long term of 11 weeks and all. I love my job. During school terms I work part-time teaching bright young primary students creative writing.

I had just had a very relaxing start to a very ordinary day. First a trip to the hairdressers and then off on one of my very favourite missions...a trip to Riverbend Books for some new titles and a coffee. Can it get much better than that? Nah! I don't think so. On the way  I got caught in two heavy downpours in what was a very sunny day here in Brisbane. Downpours are typical for Brisbane, even during our sunny periods.

With my field trip over for day, I drove home and slid the gate open, drove in, parked the car in the garage and proceeded to walk back to shut the gate, just like normal. But today turned out to be not quite so ordinary. For there near the gate, my eyes clapped sight of the smallest possum I'd ever seen in my life. All alone. At first I thought it was a rat!

I stopped short and just stared, gobsmacked. I wondered what would happen next. I wasn't sure what he was going to do. I was very careful not to make any scary or sudden moves. I quietly walked past him and slid the gate shut. My next thought was to find a towel to pick him up with. He hadn't moved.

I found an old towel quickly and then doing my best not to scare the living daylights out of the little guy, I delicately picked him up, gently wrapped him and cradled him in my hands.

Now what was I going to do?

I spent some time looking for mamma. We have possums living in our sheds, so I thought he must have fallen off his mother's back or something like that. I was hoping to find his mamma, but had no such luck. Where were they when you wanted them. Probably holed up somewhere sleeping the daylight away.

I managed to get my stuff inside and then I sat down and tried to warm up my new little friend. I hadn't been feeling that well for most of the day, so I decided this was a perfect way to make myself just sit down and relax. I found a comfy chair in the lounge room and sat down, put him close to my chest and began to warm him. I thought I'd wait until someone else came home and they could help me take him to the vets so he could be handed over to a Wildlife Carer.

I sat with him for hours. No one came home and while I waited I decided to open my laptop and google for information on possums. I didn't even know what sort of possum this little guy was at this point. Nor did I know if he was a she. I hadn't really looked at him all that much yet, but I remembered that he was a rusty red colour. The possums I'd seen in our shed, I thought, looked a different colour. They were more grey, but babies sometimes start out as one colour and change when they get their adult fur.

After a short time, I decided to go across to the shed to try to find a hot water bottle and something I could make a little pouch out of. I didn't come up with the water bottle yet, but I managed to find a little dog's knitted jacket that belonged to my son's dog, Ewok. It was perfect to keep the possum in so that he would be warm and feel secure. I somehow managed to transfer him into this new pouch and he didn't seem to mind.

I spent a long time trying to navigate my way around the minefield of information. I couldn't really find very many websites about Australian possums. It began to get dark outside and still no one had come home yet. The little possum was now very settled and seemed quite unperturbed by everything.


I read an article on an official Victorian Wildlife Sanctuary website that for emergency purposes you could feed small possums diluted Carnation milk. Well, I had some of that in my pantry and we have horses and I knew we had some clean syringes (not the needles) here for the times we've needed to inject horses. I carried the little guy around with me and found these things. I diluted and heated the milk to skin temperature and then filled up the sterilised syringe and gave it my best shot.

At first, I was very clumsy in the way I held the little guy. I'd never held a possum before and they have all these little toes and hooky feet, plus a very strong, curly tail. I was certainly very awkward and he didn't have a clue what was going on either. We muddled our way through though and I managed to get the syringe full of milk into his tummy; all 1.5 ml of it. But, hey...I was happy with that. Success.

By this stage I was beginning to think he was a little ringtail possum because I noticed the creamy-white tip on the end of his tail when he'd come unwrapped and the fur description on the website information matched his fur. So, okay. Now I had a very young ringtail possum on my hands. Literally.
By the time someone came home I decided, after reading what was involved in caring for the possums that I wouldn't take him down to the vet's tonight. If we did he would have to wait with barking dogs while a carer came to pick him up. I believed that I was responsible enough to be able to get up through the night for two hourly feeds. I'd raised my own babies, so I felt I owed it to this little guy. It all came down to common sense, really. I'd learnt by this stage that he was not what they call 'a pinky', (a furless ringtail possum), which meant he had a higher rate of survival, and the way he was eating, I really felt very comfortable that I would be fine taking care of him. Oh, and after another couple of searches in the shed I found the hot water bottle I was looking for. I was able to use this as a heat pad to keep him warm throughout the night.

So, that's how we began this journey.

I got up every two hours and reacquainted myself with the little guy throughout the wee small hours. Obviously he was quite alert during these periods. He seemed to really enjoy it when I gently 'fairy brushed' his back and head and rubbed around his ears. His mother would be doing this, so as a substitute mum, I tried to emulate what she would do. I did however draw the line at any licking to clean though. We'd have to find another way for that! Every time I held him, my heart grew bigger. During these feed times I always spend a little time with him held up against my chest so he could listen to my heartbeat.

So, until next time...
love from Willow Pond