Tweed Valley Wildlife Carers

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Bringing up Pugsy

Short-beaked Echidna

A call was received on a cool September evening from the TVWC hotline. An echidna had been hit by a car near Wollumbin High School in Murwillumbah and the driver, a young woman, was distraught. The echidna was seriously injured, and a puggle, a baby echidna, had been found several meters from its mother.

A quick drive to Murwillumbah and the injured echidna and her puggle were taken into care. Unfortunately, xrays the next morning revealed that the adult female had extensive snout fractures which were not repairable and she was euthanased. That left the raising of puggle to me, something I had never done before as these little animals rarely come into care. Armed with advice from carers in other groups and known-Echidna experts, such as Dr Peggy Rismiller, I set about bringing up Pugsy.

Egg-laying and pouches!

Echidnas have a set breeding season, with mating taking place in July and August. Around September and October, female echidnas lay a single egg in their pouch, which is not much more than a fold of skin.

The egg, the size of a grape, remains in the pouch for ten days before the puggle is hatched, weighing less than half a gram! The pouch enlarges through the thickening of abdominal muscles and the swollen mammary glands, to accommodate the puggle.

Echidnas do not have nipples. Instead, within the mother's pouch, around 150 pores secrete milk and the puggle finds the milk, by smell, and sucks up the milk at a rapid rate, nuzzling the mammary glands to encourage the supply of milk.

Feeding Pugsy

Pugsy, as we called the puggle, came in at 155gms, eyes still closed, unfurred, looking like a blob of plasticine. We could not tell if it was a male or female as echidnas do not have obvious external sexual organs, but we decided it was a ‘he'.

In order to emulate this natural way of feeding, I would drip a special echidna milk formula slowly onto the palm of my hand and he would press his snout into my palm and suck up the milk.

At first he would not feed, but he got the hang of it after a day or so, and the daily feeding regime started. Echidnas, even babies, do not necessarily feed every day and one feed a day was all that was required at this stage, but each feed was a long one, with a large amount being consumed, up to one-third of his body weight!

After these session, he sometimes looked like he would explode!
In order to work out Pugsy's daily milk intake, he would be weighed immediately before and after each epic feeding session.

At the end of each session, my palm would be red and sore from the pummelling it got from Pugsy's snout, but it was worth it to watch him grow.

Pugsy gets spines

Soon his fur started to grow and his spines which were sharp from the very start. At this stage, his mother would have secreted him into a burrow somewhere, returning every three or so days to feed him. Not only would the puggle not fit into the pouch, it would have been much too painful for mum with those spines growing.

Feeding Pugsy now not only hurt my palms but I felt like a pin-cushion at the end of each session. Fortunately, he progressed from daily feeds to every second day, then every third.

Housing Pugsy

Pugsy started off in an artificial pouch, a woollen beanie, which was replaced by an artificial burrow made from a terracotta pot, filled with soil and leaf litter.

His temperature was always monitored as echidnas cannot tolerate heat. This was quite difficult as summer was upon us and the outside temperatures soared to the mid-thirties. Fortunately, a room under our pole house managed to remain cool and temperatures did not exceed 26 degrees C.

Getting ready for the wide world

His milk feeds stretched out to every five days, with consumption rising up to 500mls in one session. He grew quickly and, after more than five months in care, he was moved to an outside enclosure and introduced to termites, hollow logs and the natural environment, in preparation for his release.

At 2 kilos in weight, Pugsy was released on my property. A bright red straw was stuck over one of his spines so that we could recognise him. For several weeks he hung around, sniffing around the old sleeper walls for termites and ants. He started to wander further, and we saw him less often. His red straw fell off eventually and now, whenever we see an echidna, we wonder if it is Pugsy.