An amazing thing happened - Twin Bats

 

Debbie was cleaning the Wambina bat cage and heard squeaking, she had a quick look and then hurtled up to me and said that one of the Mums was in trouble and "there was blood everywhere". So pausing only to grab a towel I ran down to the cages.

The bat, Pocket, a lass who came off barbed wire (not normally known for her calm or sensible attitute) was certainly neither calm nor sensible as she ran around inside the covered section of the cage in hysteria, with something dangling below her.

In the gloom I couldn't work out what was going on so I caught her in the towel and went outside and tried to work out the geometry of the problem.

 

Here was the dangling placenta and a cold (dead?) baby dangling from it but wait for it there was another umbilical cord leading back under Pocket's wing.....with a fluffed up baby on the teet. Ah...ah.

 

Debbie is our seabird specialist and had a pair of scissors (normally used to cut fishing line off pelicans) so she cut the umbilical cord leading to the baby on the teet....it was white and didn't bleed so that was good and I put the still hysterical Pocket back in the cage to calm down.

 

I was holding the slimy cold baby in one hand.... and there were no movements.... for a long time.... and then little quivers started. I had him up at the house by this time. I cut his umbilical cord which bled sluggishly so I held it fast until it stopped (babies can die from bleeding umbilical cords!) and washed him with warm water to clean off the blood. We warmed him up and fed him glucose-water. He seemed a strong little fellow...I measured his forearm but forgot to write it down (tut!) but it was 56 or 58mm, for a twin he is quite big.

 

Then Mum and I had a long and fairly inconclusive discussion on what to do next. The problem was Pocket. Neither of us thought that she would be at all cooperative. Jan arrived for our normal Sunday weigh and measure in the cages and with the feeling of "Oh what the heck" we toe-banded the bub and then took him down to the cages for a suck. It must have been 2 hours since I had taken him from his mum. Anyway I caught up the still hyperactive Pocket and bared the unused nipple. Jan put him on and we braced for an explosion from Pocket. There wasn't any.

 

So I took a risk and put the three of them back in the cage. Pocket immediately licked and generally accepted the toe-banded bub. She didn't seem to mind that she had a baby already and seemed a lot calmer, I got the photo (below). It was almost as if she was aware that she should have had two and now she was happy. I haven't measured the other baby..but they look a similar size, I assume they are both males. I have the placenta which is going to Gemma, it is big and weighed in at 26g but I think she had attempted to eat it (hence the blood). The bubs have names, Romulus (with the band) and Remus (without). It is pretty obvious that Remus was born first quite normally, then came the placenta, then came Romulus.

 

So that's my story. The twins are still on mum...I'm checking them regularly and everything seems fine. I would be interested if anyone has had twins in the network that both ended up on mum...and if anyone has had twins where the mum has looked after them until weaning. The complicating factor in managing them is Pocket, isolating her or putting her in a smaller cage are just not options: she would go completely off her head. I'm trying to put special supplements in the food bucket next to her at night but so far everytime she sees me she races for the other end of the cage so her friends are probably getting the supplements!

 

Bye

Kerryn and Gwen

 

PS  when you go in the cage, you are greeted by a large spidery being, legs drawn up, arms drawn up and a large-eyed

scowl.  A force to be reckoned with.  I do not think taking one of the babies from her would be a good idea.  Gwen

 

Our bat people

 A successful  Rescue