In fact, I work at the DSE in Victoria, which was involved with the rescue of these guys. I write the internal news stories on our intranet, and we have run a couple of updates on these cute little puggles, because they have been really popular with staff. (what a surprise!)
I have been reading your blog for a while, since round about the time you first got Fips, and have been very tempted to send you a comment with these photos of them, which we have run in the internal news. Don't know why I haven't before now. But I have enjoyed seeing the news of Fips and watching his progress.
The reason why I'm writing now, and this is really sad, sad news -- I called Healesville Sanctuary today to find out how these two platypus babies were doing so I could write another update, and heard they have died.
Apparently they both died really suddenly of the same thing, one just before Christmas, and the other a few days later.
Healesville think it was because they missed out on antibodies in the mothers' milk.
Anyway, I'm really sorry this is the first comment I'm making on your blog, but when I saw the entry, I felt I had to let you know.
I hope Fips continues to thrive.
I guess it just brings home how hard it is to hand-raise monotremes, and that even with all the expertise at Healesville Sanctuary, and the fact they raised Millsom by hand from around the same age as these guys were, it's still a really difficult job.
So hats off to you for all your work.
PS I have an even cuter photo of these two guys at work, right after they were found, which I will send thru on Monday.
I would have thought at that age they'd had enough of the early milk the very young need. With echidnas they can die of over eating and over heating, but I think their metabolism is slower than platypuses.
The trouble is that even with all the study done on monotremes, we still know very little about them. The zoovets were very surprised to see how well Fips was doing, since they've had very little success with puggles. I think there is a minimum size they have to reach before they will be successfuly hand-reared. Around here echidnas less than 150g have never survived. Fips was 190g when I got him.
Maybe platypuses are the same, but we still don't know the minimum. They are far less common on echidnas and just don't come into contact with people.
argh! Something that cute deserves to live! It is unfortunate indeed that something as simple as bacterium or virus can make all the difference, but it's a start. The more we know and the more we conserve, the better for monotremes!
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Oh, must pet this one, too!
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Geez, what is it with monotremes that their offspring are so adorable??
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In fact, I work at the DSE in Victoria, which was involved with the rescue of these guys. I write the internal news stories on our intranet, and we have run a couple of updates on these cute little puggles, because they have been really popular with staff. (what a surprise!)
I have been reading your blog for a while, since round about the time you first got Fips, and have been very tempted to send you a comment with these photos of them, which we have run in the internal news. Don't know why I haven't before now. But I have enjoyed seeing the news of Fips and watching his progress.
The reason why I'm writing now, and this is really sad, sad news -- I called Healesville Sanctuary today to find out how these two platypus babies were doing so I could write another update, and heard they have died.
Apparently they both died really suddenly of the same thing, one just before Christmas, and the other a few days later.
Healesville think it was because they missed out on antibodies in the mothers' milk.
Anyway, I'm really sorry this is the first comment I'm making on your blog, but when I saw the entry, I felt I had to let you know.
I hope Fips continues to thrive.
I guess it just brings home how hard it is to hand-raise monotremes, and that even with all the expertise at Healesville Sanctuary, and the fact they raised Millsom by hand from around the same age as these guys were, it's still a really difficult job.
So hats off to you for all your work.
PS I have an even cuter photo of these two guys at work, right after they were found, which I will send thru on Monday.
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I would have thought at that age they'd had enough of the early milk the very young need. With echidnas they can die of over eating and over heating, but I think their metabolism is slower than platypuses.
The trouble is that even with all the study done on monotremes, we still know very little about them. The zoovets were very surprised to see how well Fips was doing, since they've had very little success with puggles. I think there is a minimum size they have to reach before they will be successfuly hand-reared. Around here echidnas less than 150g have never survived. Fips was 190g when I got him.
Maybe platypuses are the same, but we still don't know the minimum. They are far less common on echidnas and just don't come into contact with people.
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Something that cute deserves to live!
It is unfortunate indeed that something as simple as bacterium or virus can make all the difference, but it's a start.
The more we know and the more we conserve, the better for monotremes!