Baby Koala Needs To Eat Poo To Survive 🐨 | Bondi Vet

Come here and say hello to Uncle Tibby for a minute. Hello little one, how are you? At the Australian Reptile Park, it's an important day for eight-month-old June. She looks great. Yeah, yeah, getting so big. The joey has been hand raised by Tim and Keeper Julie, who've been providing round-the-clock care. It's okay, it's all right. Thankfully, she seems to be growing well. I don't get much cuter than that. She looks good, but just gonna make sure, double check. She looks great. Let's see how she weighs. What did she weigh last time? About 680. Look at her, hello you. That's all right, that's all right. What do you got? We got 700. 700 on the dot. Beautiful. That's great. So she's put on another 20 grams. She is easily big enough for us to try and get her to take leaves. Beautiful. June's been on the milk for eight months. Now is a time, naturally, when she would start eating solid food, eucalyptus. But something that's very interesting with koalas is that they're not born with the digestive enzyme to be able to process eucalyptus. It's toxic to them, just as it would be to us. So what are you going to do? So we need to get poop from another female that has a joey that we can feed to June. And that'll give her the enzymes to be able to digest what would otherwise be toxic eucalyptus. Yeah, true. For baby June to make a safe transition from milk to eucalyptus leaves, Tim and Julie have an unusual challenge ahead. We've got to introduce June to pap today. And it's as difficult as it sounds, but I've got a plan. It's stakeout time. Yeah. We're going to sit it out. We need fresh poo from a female. There's a few down there with young. We'll sit under their perches and maybe rattle their leaves, try and get them to eat, wake up and poo. And that's what we're going to try and feed to June to get her across that threshold from milk to leaves. Yeah. When I woke up this morning, I didn't think I'd be coming to work to come and collect the koala poo. So a little bit weird, but we'll get there. So I think we're going to need some containers. Yep. Some gloves. Yeah, good idea. Let's bring June and let's go down and get some pap. Come on. You can come for a little excursion outside. The risk if we can't get June to eat pap, and we can't make that happen, is that she can't eat eucalyptus. And that compromises her likelihood of surviving. We have to get this pap into her. We've got a few mamas here and a few mamas there. Tim and keeper Julia are about to embark on one of the Australian Reptile Park's strangest jobs. I'm going to go and sit under mum number one there. Yeah. And how about if you pop in with the other two just here? Yeah, no problem. Jules and I are at the koala enclosure, and we're here to collect poo. But not just any poo. We need the poo from females that have young at a similar age to June and are papping. Here you go. Uncle Tim. In you go. Before eight-month-old June can be weaned off milk and begin eating gum leaves, she first has to eat a semi-digested dropping called pap. Nice and cosy. June. This is the only way the hand-reared koala's gut can get the enzymes it needs to be able to digest eucalyptus leaves. Leave a little head out for a minute. It's cute. Hello. This is difficult. We can't just turn up in the morning and find some old poo that's dehydrated overnight. It has to be fresh as if it were when the joey was right there hanging out of the pouch and eating it. Yeah, it surprises everyone, doesn't it? Surprises everyone. How can a koala be born without the ability to eat the only food it eats, eucalyptus? Yeah. It's crazy. Good luck. Cool. I'm going in. All right. Stay in contact. Will do. We've identified the females that have the right size joeys and now we're waiting for them to go to the toilet. That means we're on stakeout. We sit, we wait, we watch and then we catch. Come on, buddy. Any day girls. The pap or faeces that we're after doesn't have to come from June's mum. It really doesn't matter. It's a developmental stage that any female produces when they're carrying a joey. The poo turns from a hard pellet into a pasty pap and that's made so that the joey hangs out of the pouch and actually eats it. We just need that from any female to give to June to get her digestive system ticking over. How are you going, Jules? Any love? No. Pretty slow going over here. What a glamorous job. Waiting for a koala to go to the toilet. Come on, please. Hello, are you going to do a poo? Oh, I've got signs of action. Yeah? False alarm. Come on. We're going to be here all day, aren't we guys? False alarm. Oh, come on. Time is a real factor here. The females only produce pap at a particular point throughout their joey's development. If we miss that window, June can't move from milk onto solid foods. It's critical that we get it. I'm sorry, Mum, I know it's not glamorous but it's just something I've got to do. Someone's got to go sooner or later because they're very active. Yeah. Come on. Every now and then I think, so close and you know, they get up and they move around and you think this is it but no, no poo. In you get, June. Action time. Jules? It's happening. Is it? Finally, I look up and there's movement. Just as I get round to the mum, I can see a pellet coming out. The container's right there and I've got it. Oh, good on you. Three nice pap too. Thank you very much. This is perfect pap. Right colour, right consistency, right shape. We're on the money. That looks pretty good. Liquid gold. And let's have a look. If we've got here some old poo. Yep. That's what we're looking at is normal koala poo. Dehydrated, hard pellety and we've got perfect pap. Soft, mushy, palatable. What we need to do now is take June back up to the nursery and see if she's willing to eat this pap. This is a big moment. You think she's gonna eat? I hope so. Sit her there for a second. I've got two young boys and I know what would happen if I tried to give them pap. It wouldn't end well. Hopefully, June's instincts override that and she gets on with it. Right June, it's very, very important that you do this. She's pulling faces. She hasn't even tasted it. She's... What are you doing? Come on, June. You need to do this. Come on, June. She's sniffing, sniffing. Nope, I wish she'd eat it. Well, I thought I'd hoped it would go a bit easier than this. Yeah. Come on, June. Very, very important for you that you take this. June really needs to eat this for her own benefit. Time is critical. If June doesn't eat it, she's in big strife. June is a little princess. I put the pap near her mouth and before it even touches, she's pulling faces and her tongue's coming out of her mouth. I don't know if she's gonna eat it. So what do we do if she doesn't take this now? Well, I wish she had, but I can say I've got a plan. Can you please mix up some milk and grab a very small bunch of the nicest leaves and I'll meet you out at Mum's Club. Yeah? It's time for plan B. Now, what I'm going to do is mix some of that pap in with her milk and trick her into ingesting it. Fingers crossed it works. Good girl. She doesn't need a lot of this to do the job. So here's the milk. And the idea is just to get a little bit on the end, just to get her drinking like she does. And hopefully she gets a mouthful of you know what. At the same time. Come on, darling. Interested? Not sure, still smelling. She doesn't want it just yet. Little June reaches her arm out and grabs onto me and I know exactly what that means. She's ready to drink. Look at that. That's great. Look at the milk going down. We did it. Plan B worked. It's an instant relief. A big weight is lifted because now she can do what all little koalas do. Eat eucalyptus. Look at her go. What a champion. It's so hard not to pat her and go, good girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let her drink, let her drink. Today is a proud mum moment really. I mean to see her take that little next step that she needs and it's so important for her development is just so amazing. Very, very proud. Yeah and it's not important how much milk gets in. The fact is that she's got half a pellet of pap in here with this and that's all the goodness she needs. Done. Look at her little milk beer. What a relief and a great success and it won't be long before she's out in the park with koalas the same age as her in koala preschool. My wife is at home and she just went outside for some reason and the little snake was curled up and so he started failing from the mouth. Good puppy, good girl. She's had a pretty traumatic day. She's been bitten by a snake and now we're sticking needles in her. Good puppy. Going to be brave this time. Meanwhile at the Bondi Referral Hospital SASH, seven-year-old Zoe has been rushed in suffering from a snake bite. Definitely killed by something, dog or owner. The Bichon Frise has been looked after by vet Darren Foster and emergency nurse Jess. Are the owners here with the dog? Yes, he's at a reception. I was at work and my wife was at home and she just went outside for some reason and the little snake was curled up and Zoe started failing from the mouth. Zoe was attacked by a deadly red-bellied black snake. If she doesn't receive antivenom soon, she'll suffer an agonising death. The antiserum needs to go straight into the bloodstream via a catheter but Zoe's resistance is making it almost impossible to save her life. Look at this one. Over at SASH, Zoe, the seven-year-old Bichon Frise, is being treated for a snake bite. Without antivenom, she'll die. Going to be brave this time. This is Darren and Jess's second attempt to insert a life-saving catheter. So just try and tap the head to take the emphasis off what's going on on the leg. Without the catheter, Zoe won't get antivenom she desperately needs. She's had a pretty traumatic day. She's been bitten by a snake and then she's been dragged to one veterinarian and then she's been taken to another place and she's been left here and now we're sticking needles in her. She doesn't have any idea why we're doing it or what we're doing it for. Over at SASH, Zoe, the snake slayer, is fighting the catheter. Without it, she can't get the life-saving antivenom she needs so urgently. This is Darren's third attempt. This time, Darren calls for backup. Now Zoe's antivenom treatment can finally begin. At the moment, we're just about to give her some methadone so that she'll be more comfortable because her muscles are breaking down at the moment and that can be quite painful. So that'll make her sleepy, a little bit more relaxed and she'll have a nice comfortable day. All right Zoe, it's time for you to go home. Come on, sweetie. Just a day after her showdown with a deadly snake and Zoe is back to full health. Come and see everyone who's come to see you. Big family reunion. Can you see Zoe? See if you can see her. It's a hero's welcome for Zoe the snake slayer who overcame a red-bellied black snake and a chronic fear of needles. She looks just so good. I can't believe how well she looks considering what she's just been through. Amazing, just amazing.