Petra the Euro

About a month into work, a wildlife carer brought in a little Joey for euthanasia. Her Mum had been hit by a car the day before and she had been handed in. The Pilbara Wildlife Carers euthanize anything under 500g, because survival rates are low for this age. This wee one was only 326g when she arrived. 

I couldn't do it! So, I became a full time Mum - 5 feeds a day (thankfully not during the night!) and toileting, and changing pouch bedding etc. I named her Petra after my beautiful and crazy best friend - because taking on a baby Kangaroo is just the sort of thing she would do, not me! She's a Euro Kangaroo, they're pretty small and the females only get to about 25kg. She was about 4 months old.

Starting to get a bit more fur:

Soon afterwards another little Joey came in - Bec adopted him and called him Clarke. He was Red, which are much bigger - in fact he's only about 2 weeks older than Petra but the size difference is huge! Red males can get to 90kg. 

The plan with these babies was to raise them until they're about 10-16 months old, then release them into the wild. 

Note the swollen testicles - roos are comforted by suckling, and it seems Clarke has discovered something to use as a dummy - we are going to have to get him a real dummy before he does some serious damage! 

Most of their time is still spent in the pouch (we have pouch bags) at this stage, but for healthy muscle and bone development they need sunshine and exercise so we took them out once a day.

Petra wasn't so keen on the sunshine and tried to find a pouch to crawl into wherever she could!

14/4/11 - looking a wee bit more furry. Still not so thrilled about being outside though!

She started making a real fuss when I left her pouch on the floor at night. I figured it was too hard for her, so put it at the foot of my bed, cause she usually just sits in her pouch until I take her out for feeding.

Not so much this morning... I woke to find she had made her way out of the pouch, up the bed, under the covers and was snuggled up in my arms... I was spooning a kangaroo. 

Got home that afternoon and could hear some very distressed kangaroo clicking sounds coming from my room - she had again gotten out and this time had got into the wardrobe where I found her trying to climb up one of my dresses... sooo cute! 

Petra grew bigger and stronger, destroyed the washing and the vegetable patch repetitively and was a major part of my life for 2011.

Sarah, Petra, Barnaby

Not exactly camera shy

We obtained a mate for Petra - this is Barnaby (right) who was handed in by some Aborigines who found him on the side of the road.  

Having a bath under Otto's supervision

Petra, Barnaby

My last day with Petra

In December, we gave Petra and Barnaby to the wildlife carer who brought her in to complete their dehumanisation process. At this stage Petra was still too attached to me and hence too trusting of humans.We needed to separate ourselves from the kangaroos - they lived in the carer's yard with minimal human contact for a month, before being released into the wild in January. They were released into an isolated area where the local Ranger likes kangaroos and they are not shot. I hope she is doing well in the wild. She was a huge amount of work but she was wonderful.