Apple Bee is a juvenile male Grey-Headed Flying-Fox around 14 weeks old. He crash landed in a terrace courtyard and managed to crawl inside sometime during the night 2 nights before rescue.
The resident thought a stray cat had come in overnight and knocked things over. When she came down in the morning, she closed the kitchen cupboard and tidied up, not realising there was a flying0fox in her cupboard.
She got a little bit of a surprise finding him in the cupboard today.
Apple Bee (named for the nearby street) is a little bruised and sore, has hit his head, and is quite dehydrated.
He will remain lying down for the night, with analgesia and extra injectable fluids. Tomorrow if he's OK he can hang out with the other wild juveniles in care. When they've been fattened up a bit they'll go to creche with the hand raised babies, and will be fast tracked for release.
When the hand raised babies are 3 months old, they go into a creche, where they join other orphans and form a group. 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 will have fully integrated and fly out with them.
