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.)	Breeding Wallabies / Hand Rearing Baby Joeys Wallabies usually breed during the fall and the babies can be seen poking their heads out of the pouch about six months later in the Spring. Wallaby females usually have their first baby in their second year and produce one baby (twins occur very rarely) per year. The gestation period is only 28 to 34 days long at the end of which the baby is born and climbs up the mothers stomach to the pouch where it climbs inside and attaches itself to one of the four nipples found within. The nipple swells, filling the joey's mouth so that it cannot release the nipple until its jaw is more fully developed. The joey does not suck initially but milk is expressed into its mouth automatically. 2 days after the birth of the baby the mother will mate again. This second baby will develop until it is a bundle of 100 cells and then stop. This pause in development is called embryonic diapause. The baby stays in this state of suspended animation until the first wallaby leaves the pouch (or dies). Now the diapausal joey will complete its development and be born, move up into the pouch and attach to a nipple. The first joey will continue to feed from its mother by putting its head into the pouch to suck. This first joey is now referred to as an "at heel" joey. (By this time, the nipple that the at heel joey habitually nurses from will have elongated considerably. Sometimes an at heel joey can be seen to reach his head into the pouch and then withdraw it with the end of the nipple still in his mouth, looking for all the world like he is drinking from a long pink straw). Once again, the mother will mate and produce a diapausal baby. At any given time a female wallaby might have one joey at heel, one joey in the pouch, fused to a nipple and another joey in embryonic diapause in her womb. Nature's assembly line at its most efficient! Sometimes the birth of a diapausal baby may be delayed even though the pouch is vacant. If the mother is in poor health or is subsisting on a barely adequate diet, is under stress or there is a drought, she may put off having the baby for up to 2 yrs. A couple of years ago we were unfortunate enough to lose one of our male wallabies. He died in the Spring just as his offspring were starting to peek from their mother's pouches, and yet the following year the females had more of his babies even though he had been dead more than 12 months. It was kind of spooky. A male wallaby can successfully service up to 10 females. Two mature males should not be kept in the same pen together because they will fight constantly.

Hand Rearing Baby Joeys

Hand rearing babies is a necessity if you want them to be tame. Even if the mother is as sweet and affectionate as can be and lets you pet her baby, it will not grow up to trust you unless you take it away and bottle rear it. Nothing else works.

Bottle rearing joeys seems like a tricky business at first but after you've done it a few times it doesn't seem difficult at all. The first time I did it I was a nervous wreck. I was so scared that I was going to do something wrong. It didn't help that the person I purchased the joey from was one of those doom and gloom people who was sure that the wallaby was dying every time I called her for advice. I probably drove my vet nuts for the first couple of weeks. I was like a paranoid new mother. Every little thing the joey did was interpreted by me as being of grave significance. It turned out that there was nothing wrong with the joey (other than its formula didn't agree with it) and it grew up to be perfectly normal and healthy.

          Most of my breeding females are not tame and so getting the joeys away from them can be a little tricky and time consuming. In the Spring I observe the females closely to see what the joey's heads look like when they peek from the pouch. A pink head means that the joey is too young to pull. A pigmented head that has very short slick fur is not the best candidate either (although if the mother dies it can be successfully hand reared at this stage. Pink joeys have been successfully hand reared too but you need an incubator to do it or at least a warm and humid environment.). Once the joey's head is properly furred and the fur has started to fluff out, the joey is ready to be taken from its mother. At this stage it should weigh between 2 to 2 1/2 lbs. Once we have selected the joey we want to pull, we wait patiently for its mother to enter one of the sheds. The dog door is fastened closed and then we enter the shed and catch her by the tail. In a confined space this is quick and easy to do. While my husband holds the wallaby up off the floor by her tail with the feet pointing away from him (this is important because they lash out with their powerful hind limbs and it hurts if they catch you in the stomach or groin), I squat down under the mother's pistoning legs and reach into the pouch to find the joeys tail and slide it out. Holding the mother or the joey by the tail does not hurt them because it is the strongest part of their body. Getting a hand in the pouch can be a little difficult at first because it is quite muscular and the female will try and keep it clamped tightly closed but after a few seconds she will usually give up and relax enough that you can get your hand in. Once we have the joey and it has been placed in a cloth bag, the mother is released from the shed where she immediately goes back to grazing as if nothing had happened.

          I usually pull joeys in the evening. The first night I do not attempt to feed the joey (they are too agitated at first and just knaw on the nipple and they have not had time to get properly hungry). I just sit quietly with it in my lap and watch television. I don't let my dogs near the new joey for the first couple of days even though the dogs have been trained not to chase or act aggressively toward other animals even if they are provoked. It needs time to settle in and get used to being handled before being introduced to other household pets. When I'm not holding the joey it spends its time in a child's playpen with a cloth pouch pinned to the side. The pouch is positioned so that the bottom of it rests on top of a heating pad set on low. A towel is placed between the heating pad and the pouch. The joey will quickly take to sleeping in the pouch. Pouches should be made from material that does not bobble up or fray because the wallaby may try and eat the bobbles or get itself tangled in the frayed edges.

          The day after it is pulled, the joey is taken to the vet for a physical and to weigh it. Initially, the joey is fed five times a day from a 5 oz puppy bottle with a special marsupial nipple attached to it. I feed my joeys puppy esbilac (available from most veterinarians). The powder is diluted one scoop of powder to three scoops of water. Puppy esbilac is relatively low in lactose, which is good because wallabies will get diarrhea if you feed them milk formulas that contain too much. Cow's milk, goat's milk, kitten esbilac and human milk replacers are all far too rich in lactose to be suitable for wallabies. For more on lactose intolerance see the article called Are Sugar Gliders Lactose Intolerant? . If your joey develops diarrhea (soft stools are ok but it should not be runnier than toothpaste) even though you are feeding the puppy esbilac, try adding Lactaid to the milk (available in most drug stores in drop form) and L. acidophilus (from drug stores and health food stores). The L. acidophilus usually comes in cap form but they can be broken open to get at the powder inside. This will often dry up diarrhea. If the diarrhea is severe and ongoing you should consult your veterinarian to rule out gastrointestinal infections. If there is blood in the stool or the urine, consult a veterinarian immediately. (Note: Carrots make thier pee bright orange. Do not confuse this with blood). In the case of severe diarrhea it is a good idea to cease feeding formula for 12 to 24 hours and to feed only pedialyte instead (electrolyte mix found in the baby section in most drug stores). This will help to rehydrate the joey. When you start feeding formula again, feed one scoop of powder to 6 scoops of water or pedialyte instead of 3 for the first feeding. For the next feeding go with 1 scoop of powder to 5 scoops of water or pedialyte, the next feeding 1 scoop of powder to 4 scoops of water or pedialyte, and so on, until you are back to a normal mixture of 1 scoop of powdered milk replacer to 3 scoops of water. Most joeys do very well on puppy esbilac with no problems. However, there are milk replacers made specifically for marsupials. It is available in the States through a company called Biolac. They can be reached by phoning Resorce International at 303-666-0924.

          Some joeys take to the bottle easily and feed very well from the beginning. Others can be difficult and take a long time to take their bottle. At first, the joey might only eat a couple of ounces at a time but will soon pick up to the point where it is guzzling its bottle within minutes. It will get to learn its feeding times and start following you around and clutching at your legs to remind you that it is hungry. Once the joey is drinking readily, it can be cut back to three bottles a day. It can also be introduced to solid food, including horse pellets, happy hopper, grated carrot, apple, cooked oatmeal and a little grass or hay. How long you bottle feed is a matter of personal preference. The joey should weigh at least 8 lbs when you wean it but some people like giving their joey's bottles so much that they continue it until the animal is adult size.