Sunday, December 12, 2010

Christmas 2010

 
The kangaroos recreate the nativity


Sponsoroo and all the kangaroozles would like to wish everyone a very happy, safe and relaxing Christmas. Please remember all the animals and look after their needs thoughtfully and thoroughly - theirs are as important as human animal needs. Thank you very much for the help given to us throughout 2010, it is greatly appreciated. Very best wishes for 2011.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Pip and Jedward


Pip has just been taken off the Sponsoroo program because he spends his time out in the wild now. Many of you would be familiar with him. Do you think he is singing or yawning in this photo?!

Pip was very honoured to be sponsored by Jedward.

These 2 gorgeous young men are so full of vibrancy and fun and are out to explore the world using their talents and charm to get them where they want to go. It's really much the same as Pip and his mates!

Please see Jedward's website http://www.planetjedward.net/ follow them on twitter www.twitter.com/planetjedward and please buy their album 'Planet Jedward' to support them along their journey.
Pip and all the kangaroozles and the rest of us here at Sponsoroo wish Jedward all the very best.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Winnie's ordeal

One of my girls who I raised 5 years ago, a Red kangaroo named Winnie, came home from the wild on Sat night 7th August with a prolapse of her pouch. The inner part was inverted out of the pouch and hanging down near her feet, poor love. It was full of blood/body fluid, she must have had a serious and horrendous injury to cause the problem. You can see from the photo on the right, a big red bruised area on the right side of the sack.
A big male Red accompanied her home, she must have taken quite a while to walk from wherever she was. She also had her at-foot joey with her. She was happy to follow me into a big yard - which was to become her home for the next 7+ weeks.

The first vet came the next morning, a friend Kelly also came for moral support! After my husband and I had caught her and the vet gave her an injection to calm her, he anaesthetized her and then syringed and squeezed out a lot of the fluid, roughly washed the sack and stuffed it back in to the pouch. He found a little embryo in the pouch who would have been a couple of days old but of course Winnie couldn’t have carried it, so sadly it had to be removed (and didn’t live for much longer). He then hurriedly stitched up the opening of the pouch, he was in a rush to be somewhere else. He said he’d return on Tues 24th to remove the stitches.

After about a week, I was worried about the area at the top of her pouch where the stitches were, it was bumpy and looked like a couple of pockets of blood were forming. On the evening of Wed 18th, it looked as though a piece of dead skin was dangling out of the pouch and by the next morning this had grown longer. I rang the vet clinic and asked if the other vet, Dwayne was on duty. Luckily he was, so he came out to see Winnie. We are 25km from this vet clinic.

A couple of friends, June and John, were here to help us with Winnie. John and I caught her so Dwayne could give her an injection to calm her before the next injection to anaesthetize her. We carried her to the house because it was raining and not so good to operate in the yard. There, Winnie was able to have gas to keep her asleep.
Dwayne took out the stitches, cleaned out some infection, then dressed the wounds and bound bandages around her lower body to hold the dressings in place. He was very caring and painstaking about his work. While she was still under anaesthetic he put a bucket (which John had cut to fit her) over her head and tied it on. That was because he hadn’t brought with him any of those collars they put around the neck of a dog or a cat to stop the animal from biting off the dressings. I was very worried about this because a kangaroo relies on all their senses for survival and to have her hearing and sight interfered with could really cause distress. We took her back to her yard and June, John and I sat with her while she woke up and rested with her head on my lap for the afternoon. However when she got up, she did panic, so we quickly took the bucket off.

On Tues 24th August, Dwayne came back to check the wounds. Once again John and June were here, once again the same process about catching and anaesthetizing Winnie (and in fact every time Dwayne came hereafter it was to be the same process – our wonderful friends J&J!). This time Dwayne cut open a section to remove blood that had collected into a pocket in between the outside wall and the inner part of her pouch. He thoroughly dressed her and bandaged her. To cover her bandages, we used a singlet of mine putting it on so the singlet was upside down. As you can see from the picture, her tail went through the neck part, her legs through the armholes and we taped the bottom of the singlet up around her chest. (The blue in the pic is Vetrap bandage which doesn’t stick to the fur, so that was used under the sticky bandages).

Soon after Dwayne had left, I noticed that a lot of blood was leaking through her bandages, she was bleeding profusely (I think he must have cut a blood vessel). So I rang him and he came back. Instead of undoing all the dressings, he added dressings over the top and wound more bandages to apply pressure to stop the flow.
He came 3 days later on Friday 27th to change the dressings and clean up the area. Once again we put a singlet over all the dressings.

Dwayne came again the following Tuesday, cleaned out quite a collection of infection, then redressed, bandaged and singletted! A week passed before he came again on Tuesday 7th September. The wound was starting to look better. This time we packed it with Manuka honey 20+ then redressed, bandaged and singletted! When he came on Fri 10th the wound had again improved but we didn’t feel quite ready to leave off the dressings.
Dwayne’s last visit was Wednesday 15th September. This time the pouch wound was looking clean and about the size of an oval shaped 20cent coin. However poor Winnie had pressure sores on the top of both legs from the bandages. Dwayne scraped away some flesh and infection on the left side one but the right side one he left to heal itself. No more bandages! No more singlet! The pink you can see in the photo is from an antiseptic product which is sprayed on to keep away blowflies.

Winnie had been amazing throughout all this. She was very stiff and sore each day after the vet visits because she had a pouch full of dressings and lots of dressings taped to her. But she was very accepting and brave. She didn’t like being caught each time, nor did she like all the injections she had to have, to put her to sleep and also for antibiotics. All the drugs must have been a lot for her system to cope with. She was also having probiotics to help her system deal with the antibiotics, Vitamin E and Selenium for healing and homoeopathy to help with her physical healing and with her mental healing to cope with the whole ordeal.

She had a number of family and friends who came to visit her. I would see her at- foot joey outside the yard or other Reds including the big male who had come with her initially. I made holes in the fences big enough for her joey to go through but I don’t think she did. I spent as much time with Winnie as possible during the day or when I was at work and my husband wasn’t here, June and John came and spent time with her. They helped me to put up our big tent so I could sleep in the yard with Winnie at night. I would leave the tent flap open so she could come in there if she wanted to. Fortunately she was happy to have big cuddles, a bowl of the milk formula she was raised on 2 or 3 times a day and treats to eat, so that offered her some comfort. Picking lots of extra grass for her was not difficult because we have had rain during the winter.

We kept Winnie in the yard for a few more days to continue the homoeopathic treatment, Vit E and probiotics and to keep an eye on the pressure sores. Then on the night of Monday 27th September, I left the gate open for Winnie. So as I went to sleep in the tent, Winnie was grazing outside my door. Sometime during the night I stepped out to see if Winnie was still in the yard but she wasn’t. In the morning, I awoke to Kookie, a young Eastern Grey female, chewing at the tent ropes! At 6am as I walked back to the house with Kookie plus 2 little Reds, Sophie and Rooby, I felt so happy and relieved for Winnie that her ordeal was over but also felt melancholy because I didn’t know when I would see her again. I hoped that she would return so I could keep an eye on the pressure sores.

To my absolute joy, there she was back at the yard 2 hours later! We had a huge cuddle then she went back in to the yard and slept there all day!! She had obviously enjoyed the room service and made the most of it again that day until she headed off to graze that evening!
For the first week she was coming back to the house each day, sometimes twice a day to have her milk and homeopathy. The sores were still quite nasty but improving. Over this last week she has been coming home most evenings, having milk and homoeopathy and still enjoying a cuddle. Her leg wounds have improved greatly, the one on the front of her pouch is not there any more. The top of the pouch where the stitches were is bumpy and rough. I hope she will be sensible and not have a joey for a long time to let everything thoroughly heal.

How wonderful that she was able to come home to be healed, it must have been so painful and goodness knows what would have happened to her if she hadn’t. It is obvious that she has appreciated all the help and support she has received from everyone, those immediately around her and those from further afield.
Thank you so much to everyone.

© Susie Rowe