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A
friend of mine, Mal, rang me to tell me he'd found a dead possum on the side of
the road and it had a tiny possum in the pouch. It was really late at night so
I asked him to bundle the corpse into towels and keep it as warm as possible.
The next day I collected the possum, and into my life enters Kaysha, the tiniest
possum I had ever seen. I
had to cut the pouch open with a pair of scissors so Kaysha wouldn't be hurt when
we got her out. YUK! Kaysha
was cold when we got her out of the pouch and she was dehydrated, so we gave her
some warm fluids to
re-hydrate her and give her some energy. We
then bundled her up into lots of warm wrappings and we took turns in putting her
down our jumpers, close to our hearts, to keep her warm. A
few hours later we weighed her as it is important to know exactly how heavy (or
should I say light) they are to guestimate their age and to give them the correct
amount of milk. Kaysha
weighed in at a tiny 36 grams, lighter than a chocolate bar! Her eyes were still
closed and her ears only just up so we knew it was going to be hard job as possums
at this size rarely survive. But we thought we'd try anyway. Todd
made a humidicrib for Kaysha as furless critters need humid air and warmth to
survive. We set it to 32 degrees and put a tub of water underneath the shelve
where Kaysha would be placed in her wooly wrappings. The humidicrib was powered
by a black light globe set to a thermostat so that it would go on and off to keep
the air at the right temperature. Quite ingenious we thought! We
fed Kaysha Di-Vetalact, which is a low-lactose milk substitute for animals (never
give a native animal cows milk - it will make them very sick!). She was so tiny
that we had to feed her with a 1ml syringe every few hours, even through the night,
which was really hard for two sleeper lovers!! Todd and I took turns in getting
up to feed her, it was hard, but also very rewarding.
We bonded very quickly with this adorable little creature. Which
made the end pretty hard to bare. On the third morning of Kaysha's life with us,
we got out of bed to find her dead in her humidicrib. We
had found blood in her faeces on the second day so she may have had internal injuries
from the accident. Maybe it was just because she was too small and couldn't make
it without her mum. But
it may have been human error. We
were constantly paranoid that she wasn't warm enough. We read about caring for
furless mammals and knew the temperature should be around 32 degrees. We had set
the temperature to 32 degrees, but our thermostat was showing it was a little
less so we turned the heat up a wee notch. We wondered if we made it too hot,
although we did what the books said. It
was a pretty dreadful time for Todd and I and one that we will never ever forget. It
is truly amazing how such a tiny little creature can make such a huge impact on
a persons life. | 
