Sammy is a newly orphaned joey. I'm not sure of his age. He is a sweet
little guy only as big as my thumb & I have small hands. His eyes are
open but not very wide yet. His mama accidentally hung herself 2 nights
ago. She had chewed a hole in the side of their nesting pouch and I
failed to recognize the hazard until it was too late. For this I feel
terrible. So I am left to do my best to raise Sammy.
   I had no idea, what kind of milk or food to try him on, so I went
on line & found a brief reference under lactose intolerance that
recommended esbilac puppy milk replacer. Of course Sammy thought that was the
nastiest stuff he ever saw, and wasn't about to eat it, so I sweetened it
with honey  & that seemed to help. I have since reduced the sweetening
& changed to light corn syrup. Because it seemed to be causing gas &
loose bowels (loose bowels may be normal ?)
    We're on day 3 and Sammy is strong & active. Since he has no sibling
he loves to be held & seems much happier curled up in my hand or in pouch in my shirt.
It's eight days now since Sammy went on the Esbilac. he is doing great.
has gained a lot of weight and seems to be developing well. I have
changed his feeding intervals from every 2 hours around the clock
(exhausting) to every 4 or 5 hours at night and on demand during the day
(easy in this case since he spends most of the day inside my shirt). He
has been chewing on my fingers for the last 2 days. I'm trying to get him
to eat some real food but he is only intrested if he can lick it off my
fingers. I'm sure he will grow up soon enough. In spite of the tragic
reason, careing for him has been really wonderful. It's just like
watching a little baby person develop.