8 baby flying-foxes: I have become octomum

I thought I'd introduce you to my current octopus of babies: Inky Pinky, Parlez Vous, Eiffel, Louli, Saskia, Bamboo, Grasshopper and Juniper. Somehow I've acquired 4 extra babies this week. This video shows just a few minutes of my daily life as octomum. This crowd are a bit of a handful. All the babies are between 5 and 6 weeks old. 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 have fully integrated and fly out with them.