Pudding came into Friends of the Koala close to Christmas, 2022, hence her name. She was found clinging to her mother’s back on the ground. Once in hopsital it was found that Pudding’s mum was very unwell with cancer but still managed to somehow care for her joey. Despite her mother being so compromised, Pudding was fairly healthy.
Sadly, Pudding’s mum. did not survive. However, Pudding, was about 11 months old and weighing in at 1.5kg. She was not wholly dependent on mum anymore as by that time she was mostly eating leaves.
Pudding thrived under the care of Friends of the Koala. In May 2023, at 2.5 kg in weight, she transferred to the kindy at Koala Gardens to prepare for life in the wild. From the start Pudding was very confident in her new environment.
The great escape!
10 days later Katrina saw a new koala in the forest redgum tree outside her kitchen window, the tree previously favoured by Bullet. Looking closer, Katrina noticed this new koala had a red ear tag and then recognised the nose pattern. It was Pudding!
Pudding is only the second koala, after Jesse, to escape from the Koala Gardens kindy. The kindy is in its sixth year of use in 2025 and has helped rehabilitate more than 50 koalas. Hence, the Koala Gardens kindy an fantastically successful resource for saving our precious koalas.
The next morning Pudding was still high up in the tree happily munching on the delicious leaf tips. She was too high in the tree to catch. Clearly, Pudding had made Koala Gardens her new home.
Soon Pudding was confidently moving around the property checking out her new surroundings. It was nice to see her using some of the trees where we used to see Maxine.
Over time, she began moving in wider circles. This is what we expect juvenile koalas to do as they mature. As a result, she began to head towards the south and we have not seen her at Koala gardens for a while.
Koalas need lots of habitat trees. These include eucalyptus trees for food and other native trees for shelter. The more trees we have, the more chance koalas have to thrive in Australia again.
We all hope she has found a home range with fantastic food trees and gone on to raise joeys of her own
Pudding has lots of videos on YouTube where she has her own playlist (below).
Join the Colony and get involved
You can become part of the Koala Gardens Colony by adopting one of the resident wild koalas. You can also become a Patron, and one level has an adoption option.
Come and discuss Koala Gardens and all things koala on Discord where we hold lots of interesting and often in-depth discussions there. Lots of fun!
You will become part of the family and help provide much needed koala habitat.
You can also follow Katrina and the Koalas on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Koala Gardens publishes a small number of delightful illustrated children’s books in the The Adventures of Mist series. Check out the beautifully engaging and educational design. Our mission is to help children to “Fall in love with Nature”.
You can even find some great Koala Gardens gifts over at Redbubble where there is huge range of designs on an even bigger range of items.
Alternatively, you can find quick access links to everything Koala Gardens via Link Tree.
