Squirrel, a Grey-Headed Flying-Fox orphan tries his first solid food - a grape. It's early days - he's not that impressed yet.
We start to wean the babies around 8ish weeks of age, some earlier, some a few weeks later; the baby decides when they're ready to commence fruit; we add high protein powder to the fruit once we start withdrawing their milk feeds, around 9 weeks old. Until then they're still on a full milk feed diet based on their size and nutritional needs.
In the wild, they might feed from their mum until they're 4-5 months old, depending on when she gets pregnant, and when she kicks them out of the milk bar so she can feed her growing foetus and herself without the drain of breast feeding her huge lump of a baby who should be able to find enough fruit and survive on that without more than a comforting top up from Mum.
In care, there is enough food for mumbat to continue feeding her huge babies up until 6 months; in care, the mumbat usually doesn't get pregnant while she has a 3-4 month baby (no opportunity), so she can afford to feed baby for longer.
Squirrel didn't take long to get the hang of his new found food source and enjoy the pleasures of cultivated sweet fruits; it didn't take him long to learn to also eat the apple and pear, which aren't as sweet, but which supply more of his protein needs than the cultivated for human palate sweetness of the soft grapes, melons, stone fruits, and papaya. We try to get their diet 2/3 apple and pear and only 1/3 soft sweet fruits, plus high protein powder, to get the right balance of nutrients during creche and supported release.
Tolga Bat Hospital takes donations for me. Tolga is an awesome place in Far North Queensland, which has charity status. By sending donations to them, they get a percentage (and deserve every cent) and they can allocate money to me for batty expenses without it becoming part of my income stream (which makes tax time difficult).
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Mention Megabattie or Meg in the PayPal message box and the money will find its way to me.
If no message box appears, please email Jenny to tell her that the money is for me.
IMPORTANT: If you pay through the PayPal Giving Fund, can you please email Jenny with the AMOUNT DONATED and the name under which you have donated, OR just forward along the PP receipt.
The Giving Fund doesn’t charge any fees (so the bats get more money) but PP doesn’t itemise out the amount, they just send a total every month, and we don’t know if the money is for Tolga or for Megabattie.
Here’s Jenny’s email.
jenny@tolgabathospital.org
