Maxine the pademelon was brought in by a gentleman named Max. She was found next to her dead mother. When I first spoke to Max I was told the joey had been found the day before by his neighbours. The mother was lying by the house, she had been bleeding from the nose so they assumed she had been hit by a car and made her way to where she died. The area is in beautiful rainforest with little traffic.

The joey had no aparent injuries, but very bad diarrhoea which is unusual in a joey coming straight from the mother. She was also extremely friendly wanting to be picked up all the time, again very unusual for a wild animal. The colour of her faecies did tell me though that she had only very recently lost her mother, as the coulor changes within 35 hours of being fed formula. So what was wrong with this animal, why did she have such an upset stomach?

The process of ilimination started as to why was this joey sick, firstly she was extremely dehydrated. Thefirst thing to do was to rehydrate her, a joey in this state is not able to drink formula, it must be rehydrated first, there are a number of ways to do this. First by mouth which is however a very slow process, and the time it takes can be detremental to the animal. We normally do it by subcutting the animal, this is giving it rehydration fluid under the skin, which is not something that should be done unless you have been trained to do so.

After speaking to the vet it was decided that if the joeys condition did not improve after 24 hours, we would start antibiotic injections. The joey did not improve, so injections was started after 24 hours. After 3 days there was still no improvement, so back to the vet, this time it was agreed that the joey may be suffering from some form of bacteria needing different treatment.

Little Maxine was at all times drinking her bottle well, and eating all sorts of grasses, leaflitter and dirt. The dirt is very important to a joey, just like humans the bacteria is needed for good gut flora, have you ever noticed a small child picking up handfulls of dirt much to Mum's horror, and eating it with delight.

Sometimes nature has its own way of telling us what we need, sometimes I think the animals listen better than us. Maxine is now finally improving due to the treatment the vet prescribed, it is thought she is suffering from some sort of Giardia, this can also affect humans, so we have to take care when handling her, as she could be contageous.

It is always important when handeling animals that hygine is strict, we do not know what may be the problem, and as the animals can infect us, we can at the same time infect them. Maxine will be kept away from all the other wallabies in care, untill such time as she is completely recovered.

Update on Maxine

5th September 2003