Roto Randy is a koala we see here almost every week around the Koala Hospital, even if he is not a patient of ours. Randy lives in the Nature Reserve where the Koala Hospital is located. He has his favourite trees around the Hospital where we often see him eat or sleep.
Randy is a handsome male around the age of 8. Even the girls think that he is handsome, that's why is name is "Randy":
In 2007 he was no patient of ours, but we still spotted him twice in the yards. He was enjoying the leaf in the yard an acted like he belonged in there. Normally a koala wants to get out of the Hospital, but not Randy. He noticed the girls and was quite interested in them. So interested even that he is the father of two Joeys born in the Hospital! The Joeys both got released and we re-arranged the yards, so that no koalas can come in again. Especially Roto Randy. ;)
In the beginning of this year Randy was walking in front of the kiosk on his way to one of his favourite trees. He looked a bit shabby, so our supervisor decided to give him a health check. We caught him, checked him and released him again. There was nothing wrong with him.
Three months later he was running around at the bottom of the Reserve and we saw a dark spot on his bottom. We caught him again, checked him and unfortunately he was positive for Chlamydia. This time he stayed with us for two months, before we could release him again.
Since then he has been living happily in the Reserve. He doesn't seem to mind the visitors here. Even when a Tour is on, he will walk right through the group of people on his way to a tree. The tourists like to see him walking around here and some even think that we trained him to do it. :) All the volunteers also enjoy seeing him around the Hospital and alway keep an eye out for him.
Here you can see Randy coming down and walk to the back of the Hospital to one of his favorite trees. There were a few tourists around, but Randy really doesn't care...
After a while he decided that the other tree (one of his favourites) looked better and he climbed in that one:
This lovely, kind and handsome koala is also up for adoption. Almost all our adoption koalas have been released and enjoying their live in the wild. Randy is a bit different then the others. He is living in the wild, but you still have a good chance that you will see him when you visit the Koala Hospital. I think that is a good reason to adopt him. :)
Your adoption helps with the rescue and treatment of sick and injured koalas and release back to home range when possible; also the preservation and expansion of habitat, collection of information for research relating to habitat, disease, nutrition and habits of wild koalas and to provide educational material, to increase public awareness of all aspects of the koala. It is a great present for somebody if you don't know what to give.
Look at this very cute Joey! Isn't she adorable!? I sure think she is! :)
Findlay Xena was found lying in the gutter outside a school about a month ago. There was no mother around, so we took her into the Koala Hospital.
We don't know what happened to her, but she was really flat and didn't respond to us. She couldn't sit up and kept falling over. She was not grabbing with her hind feet. This was a big concern for us and we weren't sure if Xena was going to make it through the night.
This is how Xena looked like the day we rescued her. Xena was about 7 months old when she came in and weight only 0.759 grams.
Xena 07-09-2011
Surprisingly she made it through the night and one of our best home carers took good care of her (and still does!).
Every week she came in to get weight and the carer massaged her legs and feet regularly.
Xena 19-09-2011
A week after she was found she started to climb. She was using her back legs more and more. After ten days she could sit without falling over and a few days later she was walking around the room.
She is doing so well that she climbs in everything she comes across: climbs up the legs from her carers, the wine rack and her own little gunyah.
Can you see the difference how she lookes like in this photo compared to the previous ones?
Xena 05-10-2011
When she wants to sleep, she climbs in her basket and covers herself up. She probably does this because it gives her a feeling of being in the pouch.
Xena with her home carer.
It is almost a month later now and Xena weighs 1.125 kilo grams. She still has a long way to go, but it sure is the right way!
"Princess Warrior" Xena is the right name for her, because she is a fighter!
Meet Oxley Kaylee, an amazing koala with an unique story:
Kaylee has been admitted to the Koala Hospital three times since the end of 2007. The first time she was hit by a car and the second time she was found sitting in the middle of the main road. But is was the third time in 2009 that gave her the nickname "Tripod":
Oxley Kaylee was spotted by a motorist (on the same main road!) with a tiny Joey on her back and Kaylee was dragging her hind leg along trying to get across the road to a bank of trees. She was admitted and found to have a badly dislocated left hind leg. Her Joey, who we called Oxley Twinkles was still very small and certainly needed her "mum".
All went well for a few weeks with Kaylee maintaining her weight and Twinkles growing beautifully. Once Twinkles started to become too heavy for her mother's injured leg she was ready for weaning and moved into the Joey yard. When she was big enough, we released Oxley Twinkles.
The decision was made by our veterinarian and supervisor that we would attempt an amputation on the hind leg of Kaylee. The surgery was a huge success, with everything healing beautifully and Kaylee adapting to her three legged status very quickly. That's why the staff nicknamed her "Tripod". Amazingly Kaylee was outside in the rehabilitation yard and climbing a tree in a matter of weeks.
On this video you can see how she is still able to climb a tree:
Kaylee is still with us in the Koala Hospital. She has her own yard with a nice tree to climb in. Most of the time you can find her up that tree. She seems comfortable, but we sometimes doubt it when we see her sleeping like this!? ;)
You know what the best thing is? You can adopt this very pretty koala! Your adoption helps with the rescue and treatment of sick and injured koalas and release back to home range when possible; also the preservation and expansion of habitat, collection of information for research relating to habitat, disease, nutrition and habits of wild koalas and to provide ecucational material, to increase public awareness of all aspects of the koala.
Dunbogan Dave came down to check out the fresh leaf. I'm not sure he likes it. :) See for yourself on this video:
Crestwood Matilda also wanted to have a look at the leaf. But Dave decided that he was the only one allowed on the gunyah and tried to chase Matilda away...
In the end Matilda succeeded and found a nice spot to eat her breakfast.
Did you know that these two adorable koalas are up for adoption? Your adoption helps with the rescue and treatment of sick and injured koalas and release back to home range when possible; also the preservation and expansion of habitat, collection of information for research relating to habitat, disease, nutrition and habits of wild koalas and to provide educational material, to increase public awareness of all aspects of the koala.
Have you ever seen a koala eat bark? Well, I didn't! That was, until last week. I finished feeding Edward Elly and she climbed up the tree. At first I thought she was biting her arm because of a tick or something, but I soon saw that she was really eating bark!
Eating bark is part of their diet, so it isn't really strange that Elly was doing it. But because you don't see them doing it often, I thought is was pretty special! :)
On this video you can see how she is attacking the tree. ;) In the beginning it is a bit shaky and it was hard filming because of the light, but halfway the video you can see it a bit better.
Samantha "Sam" Carroll is one of 120 volunteers helping to care for sick and injured koalas at the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie, NSW Australia. She's not a vet, scientist, or animal specialist — just someone who can’t imagine Australia without koalas in it...
