Our Postcard Wildlife Rescue Stories

Lucy and Bubule our 2025 calendar cover and postcard Girls. 

Gidget or lovely postcard and calendar cover girl 2022

 

 

Introducing Wiggles 2022 Postcard boy Who arrived with us in October 2014 at just 2.5 kgs

Wiggles is a boy and he’s got a lovely silver coat, his mum was hit and killed by a car nearby. We also have a buddy for Wiggles, Charlotte or charlie as we know her just the same size. You will be able to follow their journey with us in the what we have in care now section.

Wiggles is such a popular postcard we are repeating him for 2016. He’s a big boy now and He and his buddy charlie girl have started their soft release. Their wombat door is open on the top wombatorium, and they come and go. They have actually decided to move in with the 3 boys, frankie, tankie, and terry so it’s an interesting time.

Introducing Miss Kate Kelly our latest postcard girl.

Kate’s mum ran out onto the road in the early morning light and was sadly hit by a car.

The driver was most upset and checked the pouch and found Kate—a hairless, warm, wiggling baby wombat.  She carefully got Kate out of mum’s pouch and wrapped her in a hanky and put her under her t-shirt to keep her warm.

They were on their way to Wombeyan Caves to visit the caves, and so gave her to the Park Rangers there. Ranger Bob kept Kate warm and rang us up to come and get Kate to look after.  Kate only weighed 260g, her little ears were nice and big although her eyes were still shut.

Kate was quite cold despite Bob’s efforts and we slowly warmed her in a special hospital box. When Kate was nice and warm we were able to give her her first bottle of special marsupial milk with a special teat and tiny bottle. You should never try and feed baby animals, as it can easily get into their lungs and they then get very ill.

You can see how strong and shaped Kate’s claws are for digging, and she’s starting to get some hair. When she has lots of hair she will be able to keep herself warm and won’t need to have heat in her hospital box.

Kate has just recently been joined by another little wombat called Lucy who will become her buddy. They will stay with us for nearly 2 years till they are nearly 20kg and be released back into the wild away from roads. More about Kate will be in our news section and Facebook from time to time.

 January 1st 2014 There as lots of down’s to wildlife care, and not everything can be saved. We are very upset that our little wombats Lucy & Kate didn’t make it. By chance because both had issues with some of their organs (Kate lungs) (Lucy spleen & kidneys) and therefore more suspitable, they caught/had we don’t know when or how) a common but nasty bacteria that effected the growth of the nerves in the bowel, and part of their bowel’s stopped working. The first and obvious symptom of this was “bloat” . Both were still on milk, and getting into each others bags and as wombats do eating their poo. The wonderfull Dr Howard and Glenda tried very hard to save them, battling for week’s with untiring dedication but it was not to be. When we get little one’s into care, even the orphaning event when mum is killed adds stress to them, and getting cold and possibly injured just add’s to the tally against them surviving. We can only take consolation that it’s been a learning experience for all and hopefully help with other little ones. This photo of Kate was taken on Xmas day .

 

Daisy the baby wombat! This is her story:

Daisy was picked up from a vet after being found on the side of the road, however her paws were so clean it was obvious she’d never been outside. She had been somebody’s pet wombat! She weighed 12kg but should have been much heavier, her muscles for digging and walking were hardly there. At the vet’s she had been bottle-fed, and was extremely tame. Once home all she wanted was to be near me, and was obviously distressed at having been dumped.

She wanted constant attention, and settled well with a bottle and a cuddle. She didn’t smell and was so clean I suspect she’d been shampooed!  She was less distressed when allowed to follow me, but disappeared within hours of being brought home. After searching everywhere, I found her stretched out asleep on our bed! We also discovered she loved cat food, but was not very interested at all in grass and roots.

Definitely someone’s pet that got too big and destructive. I ended up rubbing her tummy with my foot to get her to sleep under the table when working, and to go out we needed another wildlife carer, Meg, to come babysit. I was happy to give Daisy the extra attention, as it was only for a short time till I found someone to rehabilitate her. The problem was, who could rehabilitate her? Eventually a carer was found who had had 4 ‘pet’ wombats all successfully released back to the wild. I’m pleased to say Daisy is well on the way to becoming a wild wombat again, now living in a burrow in a wombatorium. We are now finally in a position to be able to rehabilitate this kind of wombat and take in injured adults. Wombats and other native animals are NOT suitable as pets!

 

Spud our first wombat rescue

Spud’s mum had just been run over by the car in front of us. It was 1 am on a cold August night, in an area where there is no wildlife group coverage.  We wrapped Spud up in a pillowcase after wiping it inside mum’s pouch, to pick up her scent and give Spud (named because she looked like a bald wrinkly potato!) a connection to mum and help her relax through the coming changes in her life.  Spud was kept warm (but not too warm) and help was sought from Rosey, a wildlife carer in a nearby town, as we had no formula, or nipples for the bottles suitable for this 500g bundle. Rosey supplied our initial needs.

Spud was a delight. I fell in love with wombats and I located an appropriate wildlife group to take Spud and coordinated with them when would be the best for her to be buddied up with another wombat. We ended up having Spud for 6 months till she was ‘coming out of the pouch stage’ that is so big at nearly 3 kg, mum kicks them out! Wombats stay with mum for the first 2 years of their life, reaching around 20kg for bare-nosed (common) wombats. Spud needed daily rubs of cream to keep her skin soft and mimic what would be happening in the pouch, she grew to love this, wiggling in delight as we rubbed cream in. If you took your eyes off her, and didn’t shut her pen or door securely as she got bigger, she would be out and racing around the house with great excitement. She generally lived in our second bathroom through the hot summer, nice and cool, and we toilet-trained her to mess on newspaper hiding behind the toilet. We got to visit Spud a number of times after she was buddied up and grew, with a final cuddle at a whopping 17kg as her release date came near. She has been released on 1,200 acres where all the wombats had been previously wiped out. The locals were pleased to have them, although Spud started a burrow under a house, and even though Lesley & Phil had had her well over 12 months, and had therefore had most of the hard work, she didn’t remember them and had to be sedated to be moved far from the house.