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Proceedings of the First Symposium on Marsupials in New Zealand

General Discussion

page 155

General Discussion

CUMMINS. During a visit to Australia last December I learnt of a research grant into work on the reproduction of macropods that exceeded six figures, so there is a lot of money involved in such research there.

LEES. Mr Meadows, first I would like to congratulate you for helping us realise there are other marsupials apart from possums. I have two points, the first regarding ear-nicking of wallabies - we found regrowth of the ear could occur after about 2 years. The second and most interesting point concerns lumpy-jaw - do you really think you have got on top of it? If so, we will be putting our animals on sand.

MEADOWS. On your second point, yes I believe we have got lumpy-jaw beaten. We have been careful with diets and whether or not by using sand we have eliminated Fusiformis from the environment I don't know. I tend to think we have. Regarding ear-nicking, yes I agree one does get regrowth and we will either have to re-nick or probably also tattoo the ear. There should be another method for you also get tearing of the ears with fighting so it may be difficult to distinguish such tears from an ear-nick.

LEES. In the case of lumpy-jaw, we have animals that may need treatment time and time again. Is it worth continuing to inject them?

MEADOWS. I have not been in a position of having to do this myself, but I'm tempted to say no because it is claimed that there is no satisfactory cure. Vibramycin had been found to cure it in one case only but that was before my time. I think it is generally accepted that it is extremely difficult to cure. When you look at the bone erosion that occurs and the secondary infections, such as lung infections, I think it is very doubtful that one should treat it, apart from the fact that you may still have the organism being spread. I think there should be isolation to start with.

ANONYMOUS. Could you comment on the accumulated hay bedding in some shelters which are cleared out every 3 months.

MEADOWS. In the summer rocks and shrubs provided much of the shelter. In the winter last year we tried the hay bedding system in a fairly large house which the animals shared. We simply built up a hay (not straw) floor and this was added to daily. We did not clean it out - faecal and urine matter within the bedding broke down but the top of the bed was completely dry and remained clean for 3½ months. We were told this was not the right thing to do, so we are keeping our fingers crossed. Rightly or wrongly we got through and we did this with ungulates as well. We shall try again next winter.

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