Red-Necked wallaby urine burn

"Hope" The Red neck wallaby

June 2003

This little female came to me in a sorry state, she was thin and malnourished, the wounds on her backbone, right side,and base of her tail were deep.

The state of the animal was such that the vet considered euthanasia, but on second thoughts it was decided that she should be given a second chance.

Her wounds had to be bathed regularly during the day, antibiotic cream applied, injections for infection, and she was fed small amounts on a regular basis to build her system up again.

She responded to the treatment, her weight gain happened fast, and she regained her confidence, it did not take long at all for her to become interested in the others, she was soon hopping around in the pen, looking like a shaved wallaby. She had of course not been shaved, the reason for the fur loss was more than likely due to urine burn, or a pouch too hard for her delicate skin.

Her fur re grew slowly, her wounds healed in time, but her fur did not re grow on the affected areas.

Her mental state did also recover over time, as she started to interact with the other joey's in care, it was obvious how she once again started to take an interest in life, where on arrival she had been uninterested in what took place around her.

So what happened to Hope?

She was found in the pouch of her dead mother after a car accident and brought in to care. Unfortunately after that we do not exactly know what happened, but from her injuries it seems that the person caring for her, did not know how to pouch her correctly. There has also been a problem with the feeding of this animal, as her weight was not what it should have been, she was malnourished.

Her wounds may have been sustained in the car accident, but this seems unlikely as a veterinary surgeon saw her shortly after the accident, and later reported to me that those wounds had not been apparent at that stage

.

Hope had a complete recovery from her ordeal, and was released with her adopted family group, she is seen here just before being transferred to her release site, where she spent another few months before being finally set free.

November 2010

In March 2010 I received a call from a lady approximately 9 kilometers from where Hope had been released in 2003, Alex was very concerned about a wallaby on her property that had an injured foot, the wallaby also had a small joey in the pouch.

I went along to Alex's property in order to have a look at this wallaby and to try to evaluate how severe her injury was, would we be able to leave her in order for her to raise her joey, or would she need immediate euthanasia?

As explained in other stories on this site Myopathy is of great concern if we are to take an adult wallaby in to care, in fact in almost all cases it is a death sentence.

When I first saw the wallaby I was horrified to see her injury, her foot was broken with exposed bone but her body condition was good, her joey was only small most likely too small for us to save should we need to euthanase mum.

As all of this was going through my head, she turned slightly and as I saw the right side of her body, I almost froze. I asked Alex if she had any photos of this wallaby and if so could she email them to me.

I was not able to get too close to her and certainly not able to catch her even with her injury she was still extremely mobile.

When Hope was released her fur had grown back over the wounds, but the colour was different and the shape of the wound was still visible, what I saw on this wallaby was exactly the same shape and discoloration of the fur as on Hope 7 years earlier.

I went back home and found the old photos of Hope, Alex emailed me the photos of the injured wallaby and as I compared them there was little doubt in my mind that this wallaby was in fact Hope. When I compared the old wounds on this one, they matched exactly the wounds on Hope when she was released 7 years ago.

I must admit it was a very hard decision but after some thought decided that the best thing for her was to have her euthanased, gangrene would most certainly set in , and she must have been in great pain, the most humane thing to do would be to have her shot.

I asked Alex to call the shooter next time the wallaby came around, Alex was in agreement as she had been watching this animal suffer for long enough.

Hope must have known something was amiss, as she did not appear again for some time, we assumed that she must have died as her foot surely would have become infected and the infection would most likely have killed her.

However Alex emailed me again in September that Hope was again on her property, joey now fully furred and hanging out of the pouch munching away on grass, sometimes out of the pouch hopping after Mum. Hope was able to hop on one foot, holding the other foot up when moving around.

I was stunned, not only had she survived the injury she had managed to keep infection at bay and raise her joey, obviously we left her to her own devises, she had managed to survive once again against the odds.

In October I received a call regarding a wallaby that had been attacked by a dog, the dog owner had contained the wallaby in his laundry, it was on the property next door to Alex. I drove up there hoping it would not be Hope, knowing it was highly likely.

I was taken in to the laundry, and there was Hope, trying desperately to hide and hop away, but she was unable to, the dog attack had finally injured her to the extent that there was no longer any choice . I sedated her and drove her to the vet and she was humanely euthanased.

The joey was still at large, it had not been with mum when the dog attack took place as far as we knew, so it was now alone.

I went back and searched for it, I heard it hop in some thick shrubbery, but was unable to actually see the size of the joey. Again I asked Alex to take photos if she was able to see the joey at any stage so we could see how old the joey may be.

I tried to work out from the first photos back in March an approximate age, and came to the conclusion that it may in fact be old enough to survive by itself as we would certainly not be able to catch it, it was much too wild.

Once again Alex came through with her camera and sent me photos of the joey, the only thing we could do was hope it was old enough, it would be touch and go.

Sadly some weeks later Alex and her husband found the body of the joey along the road, too decomposed to see if it had been hit by a car or if in fact it had been too small to make it on its own.

Many emotions later I have come to look at this in a positive light, Hope had 7 years in the wild, she must have raised at least 5 joey's that hopefully survived, she had a good life and I was able to help end her suffering when she needed it.

Thank you to Alex for watching over Hope and her joey, this was a very sad time for you as well, having watched Hope and her joey's over the years.

Thank you also for letting me use your photos.