Baby flying-fox in care: this is Hungry Hippolyta at 8-9 days old

Описание: Hungry Hippo is an orphan female Grey-Headed Flying-Fox who was on an electrocuted mother who subsequently died.
She was 5 days old at rescue a few days ago.
We age the babies according to the length of their forearm, their development of fur, the healed state of their umbilicus and from a chart. The umbilical cord drops off on day 3, and for the next 24-48 hours it is slightly scabby or newly healed looking. Mum bat chews off the cord within a a few cms of the baby and it just dries up and turns into a very sinewy strong cord which dries further and just drops off, leaving a newly healed umbilicus.
Hippo had a newly healed umbilicus (she has a very cute outie bellybutton), and her forearm and development suggested she was 4-5 days old.
Hippo is developing as expected, growing belly fur and learning to groom and scratch. She is now trusting that Maggie and I will not let her fall, so she isn't grabby and scratchy.
The extra barbs under her claws are wearing down already and just disappearing.

When the hand raised babies are 3 months old, they go into a creche, where they join other orphans and form a group. At this stage they'd be separating from this batty mums and be becoming more independent in the colony. In creche, at this age, they learn batty etiquette and how to live in a batty society. They shrug off their human mums and want to be with the other batties. When they are emotionally and physically ready, and uninjured, and around 4-5 months old, they’re put into a release cage under a colony and they can integrate into the colony and fly out with the wild bats. If they can’t find enough food, they can always come back to the cage for a feed. Support feeding is put up on the outside of the cage for as long as they are coming back and eating it. When the colony flies out for winter, they have fully integrated and fly out with them.