Radar and Houdini arrived within a few days of each other. Both were eastern grey kangaroo joeys, and of a similar age. Radar arrived first, and was a picture of health, and intrigued us with the fact that his ears were constantly moving, hence his name. Houdini arrived a few days later, handed in by a member of the public who had tried to rear him, but had given up when Houdini got the trots. Despite the fact that he was having tummy troubles, he was constantly hungry. I tried to get him to stay in his pouch between meals, but no way would he. I could do anything I liked to his pouch in the way of shutting him in it, but before long he would be out wandering around, hence his name; he was a veritable escape artist.
Fortunately, both joeys were big enough to go outside during the day, and munch on grass, which gave Houdini a chance to fill his empty tummy. As part of the treatment, he couldn’t have milk. I gave him electrolyte replacement fluid, so that he wouldn’t become dehydrated and some medication from the vet. But obviously milk, at their ages, gave them a feeling of satisfaction that no amount of grass would. But the poor little guy, it took him weeks before I could get him onto milk. It was a long slow process, and he was terribly thin. His fighting spirit stood him in good stead though, and eventually, he progressed from straight electrolyte fluid to watered down milk to the full strength milk. And he started to put on weight. And I breathed a sigh of relief. Winter was coming, and I hated to think of this poor little guy, as skinny as a rake, coping with winter frosts. But before winter came, he had started to put his necessary layer of fat down, and his coat had thickened up.
While all this was going on, Radar was doing what all healthy roos do, getting bigger and stronger, and still moving his ears constantly, and very dependent on his friendship with Houdini. He started to become aloof from us, only wanting us around at feed time. Houdini on the other hand, because of all the attention, was terribly affectionate towards me in particular. Not only was I the one who fed him, I was the one who ministered to him whenever things went wrong, and being so thin, he needed a lot of attention, I needed to watch him constantly for any sign of a problem, so I could nip it in the bud. Because of his affection, I felt all the extra work was well worth while. I knew he was putting everything he could in to getting fit, and if he had his way, I would be releasing two healthy roos when the time came.
And the time did come, and I was able to pass two healthy roos onto their next carer, from whence they were released in due course. They were the best of friends, and inseparable, pretty similar in size and colour, and of course fatness now. The only way you could tell them apart, from a distance, was that one’s ears were constantly on the move……
Mamaroo's Diary 