Pygmy Pets Exotic Animals

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	What is a Wallaby? Wallabies as Pets Choosing A Pet Wallaby Feeding Wallabies / Fencing Requirements Breeding Wallabies / Hand Rearing Baby Joeys Wallabies & Weather / Wallabies & Stress Related Illness Splish Splash Books Mother Wallabies and Their Babies (Craft, Sarah S. Zoo Life Book.)	Feeding Wallabies / Fencing Requirements Several feeding stations were provided for our wallabies. The feeding stations consist of a small shed, 10 x 10ft, with an entrance on one side and a dog door for the wallabies to enter and exit on the other. Food and water are placed inside the shed. It is important not to let their feed get moldy by exposing it to rain as certain types of molds can be toxic to wallabies. Each shed is heavily insulated and has a raised wooden floor. The wallabies feed, which consists of a mixture of horse feed and a macropod diet called Happy Hopper, is fed in large rubber horse bowls on the floor. Apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, grapes, grape vine and apple tree twigs are also fed. The twigs help to keep the wallabies teeth and gums healthy. Don't feed gassy vegetables such as cabbage and broccoli. It gives them stomach ache and gas that is offensive enough that it clears a room if the wallaby is in the house. It can also give them loose stools. The Happy Hopper feed company can be contacted by calling 1-573-549-2883. They are located in Curryville, MO. If you do not have access to the happy hopper feed, then feed a plain horse or llama pellet instead. Do not give them feeds that have molasses added. Molasses gives wallabies diarrhea. In the winter, when no grazing is available, we also provide them with grass hay in mangers mounted on the walls inside their buildings.

Fencing Requirements

I got my first wallabies 4 years ago and despite the fact that they had been shipped some distance over a period of 2 days, they arrived in good health and appeared to be quite calm when we released them into the field. We were careful to release them in daylight so that they would have time to become acquainted with the perimeter fencing before it became too dark to see it. We did not want them running into the fence and hurting themselves. To add to the visibility of the wire fencing, we placed black plastic, 3 feet wide, at ground level all the way around the perimeter. This also gave the wallabies some additional privacy to aid in their settling in. After they had been in the pen for about a month, we took the black plastic down.

Our fences are six feet high (the minimum recommended height for wallabies) and is made out of heavy gauge 2 x 4 inch grid wire. Don't use anything with a bigger mesh because the baby joeys might squeeze through it when they emerge from the pouch. Don't try and increase the height of an existing fence with barbed wire. If the wallaby does manage to jump that high it might become tangled. Fences must be tight to the ground. A fence is only as strong as its weakest point. Believe me, if there's a hole or a gap those nosy little wallabies will find it. Ideally, a pen should be 50 x 50 ft. This size pen is suitable for 1 to 3 wallabies. A bigger pen is not necessarilly a better pen. We soon realized that when you let 8 wallabies roam over almost 2 acreas, they cannot keep up with the grass growth, and they soon dissappear in the ensueing jungle. We found that we had to walk around in the long grass looking for them in order to check on them. Some of them wouldn't move from their hiding place until you almost stepped on them. We have since divided the field up into smaller pens that that we rotate the wallabies through. Sheep are also going to be added this year to help keep the grass down in the vacant pens..