It is a rare event indeed for me to be 'allowed' to post to Julie's Blog, but on this occasion I thought it proper.
One thing about living on a farm is you have the animal husbandry (or should that be wifery?) responsibility for many living things; over 300 in our case. A few of these cannot survive on their own for a variety of reasons – but generally ill health or being orphaned – and this imposes a much higher level of care.
As earlier entries to this Blog tells, Julie adopted 2 young orphaned kangaroos some months ago - coincidentally just a few weeks apart. They were both sick and one was lame. Julie nutured them back to health and over the weeks that followed they both increased their body weights by 500%; but not without an enormous amount of attention: They had to be bottle fed 3 times a day and bundled into towel-lined bags (simulating their mother’s pouch) to sleep, initially for about 20 hours in each day.
They went through one earlier period of illness – they are very, very sensitive to changes to their environment and bugs & substances introduced by other animals, like chooks, dogs, etc and also non-native plants. Caring for them in times of illness becomes extremely intensive. With many years of animal caring Julie can do pretty well what a vet can do; the local vet knows this and allows her to self-administer drugs via mouth and injection, but with native animals it is still an experimental science.
Sadly despite all this care and attention, both Julie’s roos died late last week, 3 days apart, from an unknown bug. She threw everything at trying to save them, with around-the-clock nursing.
At least through their relatively short lives they were very comfortable and they both displayed true affection for Julie (their ‘mum’) and one in particular was always looking for a knee-nurse. The recent photo below shows Julie with one on them in their sleeping bag; they liked being bottle-fed in their bag whilst watching the TV!
Notwithstanding the sad ending, they provided a very rewarding experience for all of us....
Chris
One thing about living on a farm is you have the animal husbandry (or should that be wifery?) responsibility for many living things; over 300 in our case. A few of these cannot survive on their own for a variety of reasons – but generally ill health or being orphaned – and this imposes a much higher level of care.
As earlier entries to this Blog tells, Julie adopted 2 young orphaned kangaroos some months ago - coincidentally just a few weeks apart. They were both sick and one was lame. Julie nutured them back to health and over the weeks that followed they both increased their body weights by 500%; but not without an enormous amount of attention: They had to be bottle fed 3 times a day and bundled into towel-lined bags (simulating their mother’s pouch) to sleep, initially for about 20 hours in each day.
They went through one earlier period of illness – they are very, very sensitive to changes to their environment and bugs & substances introduced by other animals, like chooks, dogs, etc and also non-native plants. Caring for them in times of illness becomes extremely intensive. With many years of animal caring Julie can do pretty well what a vet can do; the local vet knows this and allows her to self-administer drugs via mouth and injection, but with native animals it is still an experimental science.
Sadly despite all this care and attention, both Julie’s roos died late last week, 3 days apart, from an unknown bug. She threw everything at trying to save them, with around-the-clock nursing.
At least through their relatively short lives they were very comfortable and they both displayed true affection for Julie (their ‘mum’) and one in particular was always looking for a knee-nurse. The recent photo below shows Julie with one on them in their sleeping bag; they liked being bottle-fed in their bag whilst watching the TV!
Notwithstanding the sad ending, they provided a very rewarding experience for all of us....
Chris
Our guests will miss them as well.
2 comments:
RIP little roos
Well at least you rescued them from the drought for at least a short time. And look how big they got!
I think if I was a little roo it would have been great living on choose our farm for those few months. Sunning yourself on the lawn, lots of cuddles and safe pouches in the laundry at night!
RIP little roos
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