A Possum Tail
by Darryl
While walking our two German shepherds up the front of the property, Lisa came upon an injured possum. It appeared to have an internal injury to its neck or upper back. Whether it had been hit by a car or had been trodden on by another animal, we didn't know. Lisa picked it up and took it back to the house where she examined it to determine the extent of it's injury. While doing this she discovered that the possum was a female and that it had a baby in it's pouch. This made the decision making twice as hard as now she had two animals to attend to. She called me at work and asked me to drop around to the local Vet and get some formula to feed the baby in the event that the mother had to be put down."Oh Great" I thought, "This is just what we need a bloody possum running around the house." So I went down to the vet at lunchtime and got some Di-Vetelact, which I was told is a very good milk supplement for native animals.
When I got home that evening, Lisa showed me the possums.The adult, while looking alert enough, didn't really show much promise of being able to make a full recovery. The baby on the other hand, certainly showed a lot of energy and being just past that sleek stage, I felt confident that Lisa could hand raise it and later release it back into the wild. (Possibly to terrorise the camp ground.) We weighed it at 282 grams. I built a cage for it, a couple of day later when we made the decision that the mother had to be put down. I got on the net and down loaded all the information that I thought we would need. Three weeks later it weighed 576 grams.
It had the run of the house for a few hours each night. We often took it over to the camp ground to let our guests briefly have a look, and I took to calling Lisa "Davey Crockett" as the possum often sat on her head while we were watching TV. We called her Amber, because of her beautiful colour.
Amber has since been released into the wild, but she still occasionally comes calling.