This week’s patient profile features a Red-necked Wallaby orphan named Dale.

Dale is fourteen months old and has been in care for the past eight months with a macropod carer in western Queensland. Dale was fortunately rescued after a member of the public took the time to stop her car and check inside the pouch of a dead female wallaby lying on the side of the Moonee Highway.

Incredibly, just two hours earlier the same lady had also checked another dead wallaby and rescued her six-month-old joey. The first joey was named Chip. The two just-furred joeys were taken to a carer to be raised.

Over time, as the boys started to explore outside their pouches they became best buddies, and even when their carer placed them in individual pouches after each four hourly feed, by the next feed the two were fast asleep side by side in one pouch.

After developing diarrhoea and a bloated foregut, Dale was kindly transported to the Australian Wildlife Hospital by a wildlife carer who lives out at Chinchilla, when he heard that Dale’s carer was unable to make the road trip herself.

Dale was placed on I.V. fluids and is bottle fed 30mls of macropod milk formula every six hours, plus he has a bucket of fresh grass, macropod pellets and a bowl of water next to his bed in the Intensive Care Nursery.

Sadly, Dale’s conditioned worsened last week. Dr Robyn, assisted by two nurses, prepped Dale for surgery and at approximately 6pm undertook an exploratory laparotomy (on Dale’s abdominal region) which revealed inflammation to his gut. Dale came through surgery but early the next morning, Dale’s condition deteriorated rapidly. Dr Robyn made the heart-wrenching decision to euthanize Dale.

The weeks ahead will be emotionally challenging for Dale’s carer and his best buddy Chip. Our hearts go out to you both.

Please call the Australian Wildlife Hospital on 1300 369 652 for all wildlife emergencies.

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 27th, 2010 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Wildlife Warriors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.