Premmie baby flying-fox in care: this is Fennex days 1 and 2

Описание: I rescued this little guy yesterday when the rescue was called in as a microbat the size of a leaf; he was in a very vocal park but was quite difficult to find; he's not actually a microbat but a premature baby flying-fox.
I thought he was dead, but he's just cold, premature, nearly furless with just a little head fuzz; he's obviously newborn with a fresh umbilical cord and only one eyelid starting to unzip. .
So I brought him home, hoping he was able to survive his traumatic start to life.
All I could do was start him on antibiotics, give him the tiniest dose of analgesia since he'd obviously fallen off his mum and suffered physical trauma, oral glucose, fluids under his skin and to warm him up in the incubator.

He was becoming very red looking, like he was bruised all over; his skin was red over his muscles, and his oral mucosa (the inside of his mouth) was bright red instead of a healthy pink. As you would expect, none of this filled me with any confidence.

He didn't survive and was dead about 12 hours after rescue; he still had a bolus of the subcutaneous fluids I had injected under the loose skin in the scruff of his neck so he died soon after gave him more fluids and analgesia.
He was always a long shot for survival, but somehow I was still surprised.

Regarding the cause of death: since I never see the full picture; I never see how the mishap happened; since I couldn't find the body of the mum, I don't know if she had issues and died (non fatal electrocution or illness), or if she gave birth to him and he was defective, so she didn't try to retrieve him if he fell off just after birth. I have no idea of the precursors to his being on the ground so I can't predict any medical issues with the little guy.

I checked out his body after death; the bright red and bruised appearance under his skin and the bright red mouth mucosa, along with the lack of urine, then factoring in his inability to warm up even with the incubator cranked up high, it seemed like he had septicaemia or endotoxaemia. I can only think he might have been a birth while his mother was dying, possibly from a not immediately fatal electrocution (there were no powerlines above the trees there). If he got an electric shock in utero, he would have internal burns leading to blood leaking out of his vessels and organs; he would not have enough clotting factors to deal with all the extravasation (blood outside the vessels); if it also affected his gut tissues and he had gut bugs outside the gut and into his circulation he would have died from massive sepsis. I started him off on an antibiotic but it was too little and too late to affect him.
I'm amazed his little body lasted so long before being overwhelmed by the infection. I've sent my fave vets the video of his decline and post mortem findings, and independently they came to the same basic conclusions; massive sepsis, reasons unknown (bugger!).

RIP little Fenix.

His name is a variant on phoenix, and I was hoping he'd rise out of the ashes, so to speak and maybe be a survivor.


Tolga Bat Hospital takes donations for our batties. Tolga is an awesome place in Far North Queensland, which has charity status. By sending donations to them, they get a percentage (and deserve every cent) and they can allocate money to me for batty expenses without it becoming part of my income stream (which makes tax time difficult).
https://tolgabathospital.org/donate/
Mention Megabattie or Meg in the PayPal message box and the money will find its way to me.
If no message box appears, please email Jenny to tell her that the money is for me.
IMPORTANT: If you pay through the PayPal Giving Fund, can you please email Jenny with the AMOUNT DONATED and the name under which you have donated, OR just forward along the PP receipt.
The Giving Fund doesn’t charge any fees (so the bats get more money) but PP doesn’t itemise out the amount, they just send a total every month, and we don’t know if the money is for Tolga or for Megabattie.
Here’s Jenny’s email.
[email protected]