WIRES Carer Patricia Edwards is raising a puggle, a baby echidna. WIRES is the Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service.
Baby
echidnas are notoriously difficult to rear, so when I was handed Puggles on 25
October, I accepted him with reservations. I hadn’t even seen one this small,
never mind raised one. But there it was, a circular 150g grey globule with some
strange appendages that appeared on occasions. And it was alive. That was the
oddest thing about it. It moved. It lived, on the planet, with us, in this day
and age.
Puggles' mother was hit by a car on the Brooms Head Road, and while she
had sped away seemingly uninjured, her tiny puggle had fallen from her
temporary makeshift pouch and been left on the road, facing certain death
within minutes on a hot day.
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| Baby Puggles |
He had spent 36 hours with his rescuer before he came to me, and he
hadn't eaten. Even that small a baby echidna can go for a couple of days
without food, but now he would be ready to eat. I knew about the dripping milk
on the palm feeding technique from our training courses, and how he would
nuzzle and sup it up. It sounded easy. It wasn't. It was impossible to hold a
strong, squirming blob in one hand, try to keep its nose facing forward, keep
some milk on the palm of the other, and keep dripping milk - with what? It was
messy, and entirely unsuccessful. The milk kept disappearing, but obviously not
into the echidna. I ended up with wet pants every time, and four days later he
still hadn't eaten, or if he had, I had no idea how - or how much.
I broke all the rules. I was told to put him away after each feeding
attempt and not try again for another 24 hours. Refusing to let him fall into a
coma I woke him three times a day to teach him to eat. On the fifth day he was
looking lumpy, with a hint of a backbone and baggy skin. I phoned our small
mammal coordinator and warned her I was going to lose him. Then in desperation
I gave him an injection of rehydration fluid and tucked him back into his box,
quite certain I had killed him. Two hours later I was astonished to find him
awake and active, rustling around and nosing the air. I warmed his milk, poured
some into a little dish, held him gently, let him roll around as he pleased
until I could see which end was which, then dipped his nose in the dish. He
blew bubbles and sneezed. Then an unexpected thing happened. He raised his
head, stretched out his neck, and his little pink tongue suddenly protruded
from the end of his beak. It was the first time I’d seen it. Gently I lowered
it into the milk and he took a couple of laps.
From then on I knew I could raise him. It was a long time before he
regained the weight he had lost, and for several days I fed him twice a day,
letting him wake slowly, not allowing him to sleep his life away as he would
have liked. In time he was taking 10 or so erratic mls and was down to one feed
a day. A day or two later he was taking 16-18 mls, very slowly, and moved
himself to two day feeds.
Right until now feeding has not been easy or natural for him, he slurps
and nose-dives, blows bubbles and still sneezes into the milk and needs to be
guided into the dish. But he eats. Now he can at times guzzle a walloping 30 mls,
quite quickly and determinedly, and is heading towards 250 g. He is on stronger
milk, he is bristly, and when he sleeps stretched out with his nose out of his
pants he looks like an echidna.
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| Puggles at 265g. |
I have to say, from the moment I first saw him I adored him. While
accepting that they either eat or they don't, and are virtually impossible to
raise if they don’t, it still would have broken my heart if he had died. You
cannot get pleasure from something when you are scared for its life. He has
been an incredible challenge, a definite labour of love, but only now am I
truly enjoying him. I would not have missed the experience - but only because
he made up his mind to live.
When Puggles is old enough, he will be released into the bush.
