Thursday 3 December 2009

Billy Button the baby bandicoot



We rescued the 'wee fella' as he is affectionally known about 2 months ago. He'd fallen out of his mum's pouch, and not sure why she didn't push him back in, but by the time we found him he was lying there, very still and cold. Popped into a warm pair of hands and cuddled all the way to the local wildlife carer I was amazed at how unfazed he was.

The carer called us back a fortnight ago to ask us if we'd pick him up and care for him till he'd gained enough weight to be released. He needs to be released where he was found. We have an enormous population of eastern barred bandicoots. A nocturnal marsupial they love digging up 'corbie grubs', curl worm. The wedge shaped holes are all through my garden and across the block. They do sometimes dig up tubers and eat my strawberries too. But I'm willing to share. They're endangered and near extinction on the mainland, we have a good population here. Something that will change when our feral friend the fox builds up his population. He is here already.

Trev is absolutely in love with Billy Button, he hangs around his neck in a pouch for most of the day. We feed him mealy worms, curl grubs, chopped up egg, oats and grated apple and special milk formula. He is gaining weight steadily, which is good, but we're facing the re-release sometime in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully he won't come back because there's been a dog (Nuju)forced to salivate for too long...

2 comments:

Linda Cockburn said...

Well, weren't those last words prophetic. I found Billy dead outside the door this morning. Nuju had a late night sojourn (which we don't allow, but he slipped out and wouldn't come when I called) and he killed him. Poor wee fella. We're all very upset and contemplating life with out Nuju too. We can't have a useless carnivore hunting native animals.

Garden Lily said...

Sorry to hear - but what a neat adventure while it lasted. What an interesting looking animal the bandicoot is. I'd not heard of them before (from Canada).