Introduction

There's a "wallaby crossing" sign nailed to a tree half way down my driveway. People who see it for the first time assume it's a whimsical joke. That is, until they round the bend to see a field full of wallabies in front of them. Typically, an uninitiated visitor gets out of his or her car, stares at the animals while scratching their head, and then turns to me and says: "Um....are they?....theycan't be?....kangaroos?"

So what possesses one to own wallabies as pets? Well, in my case a friend of mine talked me into it. He wanted to import some into Canada but couldn't get permission to quarantine them on his farm due to his proximity to other farmers and their stock. My farm, on the other hand, was nicely isolated. Hey presto, fences go up, wallabies move in. I found that I very much enjoyed having the wallabies around and I purchased some for myself. They make really interesting and attractive hobby-farm pets. They are easy to care for and can also be quite profitable to breed.

Wallabies Vs Kangaroos

There is very little difference between a wallaby and a kangaroo other than size. It's rather like comparing a pony to a horse. If you want to get technical, kangaroos have feet that are longer than 10 inches, while wallabies' feet are shorter. Wallabies are sometimes referred to as Lesser Kangaroos. All wallabies and kangaroos are macropods (means big feet). Within this group there are 57 different species ranging in size from the rat sized potoroos to the six-foot tall red and gray kangaroos. They live in a wide range of habitats from swamps to rocky mountain ranges and the savanna in between. Some species have even adapted to living in trees.

Commonly Kept Species

I breed Bennett Wallabies, commonly known as Red Necked Wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus). They stand about 2.5 feet tall when fully grown and weigh anywhere from 25 lb. to 60 lb. Males will eventually get quite big. By the time they are 6 or 7 years old they are noticeably larger than the females. In some species this size difference is very marked and in some cases there is also a color difference between the sexes. This often leads to the mistaken conclusion that the animals are of two different species. I've also kept and bred Dama or Tammar Wallabies (Macropus eugenii), which grow to about 1.5 feet tall and weigh approximately 15 lb. to 20 lb.. I don't like them quite as much as the Bennetts. I found they were more prone to stress related illness and disease than the Bennetts and were not as hardy in low temperatures. They didn't compare favourably in attractiveness either. Bennett's tend to be more expensive than Dama, selling for approximately $1200 US each compared to approximately $700 US each for Dama.

There are a number of other species available for captive breeding such as Swamp Wallabies, Parma Wallabies and Rock Wallabies but they are much more difficult to come by and tend to be more expensive. I have also seen Red and Gray Kangaroos offered for $10,000 US per pair.

Breeding Wallabies

Wallabies are not difficult to breed in captivity. In general, it is necessary to have one male for every 10 females. He will be most diligent in making sure that his mob is thoroughly serviced to the point where the females will get quite frustrated with his attentions. In fact, I've seen females lose condition due to constant harassment. For this reason, I prefer to keep my males and females separated until the breeding season in the Autumn. It is quite safe to have several males running with the mob. They will spar but not to the point where they injure each other. Most of the breeding will be done by the dominant male but the other males will get in a sneaky breeding now and again when the boss' back is turned.

A simplified overview of wallaby reproduction

Bennett wallabies are mature at between 14 to 19 months. Pregnancy in all macropods is very short varying from 21 to 38 days, depending on the species. I am not sure exactly how long Bennett and Dama are pregnant for but they would fall within that range, the average being 30 days. Shortly before the birth the mother spends a great deal of time cleaning her pouch. When the birth is imminent she sits back on her bottom with her tail protruding between her hind legs and her back resting against a tree or other surface. Her hips are rotated so that the cloaca (opening at the base of the tail) is pointed upward. The newborn is tiny, being no bigger than a bean, and extremely rudimentary in development. It is pink, blind and deaf and has only a cartilaginous skeleton. It crawls up its mother's abdomen toward the pouch opening guided only by gravity and the lay of the fur on the abdomen, which grows upward midline from the cloaca to the pouch. It moves upward through the fur by making swimming motions with its front "arms" and wriggling motions of its worm-like body. The mother licks the joey to stop it from drying out during the 5 minutes it takes to make the trip. Single births are the norm but very rare cases of twins have been documented.

Once the joey is inside the pouch, it finds one of the four nipples and starts to suckle. The nipple quickly swells, locking the joey in place. Bennett joeys spend 39 weeks in the pouch but continue to suckle until they are 51 weeks. Dama joeys spend 36 weeks in the pouch and are weaned by 39 weeks.

Female macropods usually mate again within 2 days of giving birth. The fertilized egg from the second pregnancy advances until it measures some 100 cells and then stops until the first joey has left the pouch and the season of birth/mating encroaches. At this point the 100 cell bundle reactivates and completes it's development into a joey. This pause in development is called embryonic diapause. This is a very useful method of replacing a lost joey quickly, even in the absence of a male. Some species prolong the diapausal interval if they are stressed due to insufficient water or food. Bennetts and Dama tend to be seasonal breeders, so despite the fact that they are nearly always pregnant, there are intervals where the pouch is vacant while they wait for the correct season to arrive to give birth. However, it has been reported that Bennett and Dama wallabies kept in moderate and warm climates will sometimes breed out of season.

Mine usually breed in the Autumn and the joeys are weaned in the summer. But I have had the occasional Winter baby. It is possible for a female to have a baby in the womb in diapause, a baby in the pouch suckling and an older baby at-heel. What is remarkable is that the milk coming out of the nipple feeding the pouch joey is completely different from the milk expressed from the nipple the at-heel joey is suckling.

Wallabies as Pets

Wallabies are not naturally predisposed to domestication like a cat or a dog. The only way to make them tame and comfortable around people is to bottle rear them. Bottle reared babies are more expensive than adult breeding stock due to the amount of effort the breeder must put in prior to the baby being ready to sell.

To ascertain a joey's readiness to be established on a bottle, I watch it carefully for a few weeks until I can see that the head peeking from the pouch is completely furred. At this stage the joey weighs between 2 lb. to 2.5 lb.. The mother is trapped and the joey is removed from her pouch. The loss of the baby doesn't seem to distress the mother a great deal and they often return to grazing immediately upon release. Even females that persist in looking for their baby usually give it up after a few hours.

The joeys are placed in cloth pouches that are hung on the side of a playpen so that the bottom of the pouch rests on a flat heating pad set on low. This is necessary because young joeys are incapable of maintaining their own body temperature without some external source of heat. The joeys are fed five times a day until they become more adept at feeding and consume more in a sitting. At this point, they are reduced to 3 feedings per day. Each feeding consists of about 5 tablespoons of puppy esbilac formula. The puppy esbilac is mixed one scoop of powder to 3 scoops of water and fed in a puppy/kitten bottle with a latex marsupial nipple attached. It is very important NOT to substitute other milk formulas as they often contain too much lactose. Macropods are generally lactose intolerant. Some formulas have an additive that causes the pads on some joeys' feet to swell painfully, the skin to crack and the hair to fall out. Some alternate brands of puppy formula will have this effect as well as lambs milk replacer. Exactly what component of the feed is causing this reaction has not been established. Puppy Esbilac is generally the formula of choice amongst most North American breeders. I have used it to hand rear more than 50 joeys and have always been very happy with the results. However there are specialized macropod milk formulas available. Wombaroo is the most common one. I do have some Wombaroo on hand in case I have to hand-rear a pink joey in an emergency. The wombaroo can be adjusted to more closely mimic the milk the joey would be drinking at specific stages of development.

A bottle-reared wallaby is a very affectionate pet. It will follow you around, clutch at your legs and sit in your lap. They can be house trained and can even be trained to stay off the furniture but it doesn't happen magically. It takes a lot of diligent effort, just like everything else. While it's OK to have your pet wallaby in the house to visit (assuming you aren't too house proud), they really should be outside where they can run and graze the majority of the time. I flatly refuse to sell wallabies to people that don't have adequate facilities for the wallabies to be outside. It just isn't practical or fair to the animal. I also don't sell them to people who ask silly questions like "will it be able to ride in my convertible with me?" and "can I walk it on a leash?". These people are usually exhibitionists that are more interested in attracting attention to themselves, than in the animal. Wallabies are shy, deer-like animals that prefer to stay at home and lead as quiet a life as possible.

Housing, Fencing and Feeding

My wallabies are kept behind 6 foot high fencing that has a grid of 2 inches by 4 inches. 6 feet is the minimum recommended height. Wallabies won't usually attempt to jump over a fence, preferring to get under it if they can. For this reason, the wire should be tight to the ground. For an added measure of security, bury the wire a foot into the ground to discourage burrowing animals. Wallabies don't dig. The minimum recommended size for an enclosure is 50 feet by 50 feet. Bigger is better up to a point. Once the amount of pasture becomes surplus to requirements, the ensuing jungle will prevent you from enjoying a view of your pets.

Taking a lawn mower in will upset them, especially if they are not tame. Panicked animals sometimes run into fences and break bones. For this reason I invested in some sheep. (It makes the view all the more Australian.) I don't put the sheep and the wallabies in the same pen together because the sheep make pigs of themselves on the wallabies' feed. I rotate the animals through the pens and keep them separated.

Each pen has a 10 foot by 10 foot feeding station (commonly called a garden shed) that is insulated and wired for electricity. The wallabies enter and exit through a dog door. Horse pellets are set out in addition to apples and carrots. Hay is also fed in the winter in the absence of grazing. There are specialised macropod pellets available on the market but I have difficulty getting them where I live and they are very similar to horse feed in composition anyway. I've been feeding it for over a decade and my animals have done quite well on it. It is not necessary to feed wallabies every day. Several days feed can be set out at once as they are not "piggy" eaters. They eat a little bit, go away and think about it for awhile, chew their cud, regurgitate, chew their cud some more and then go back for another snack. It is important to keep their feed dry and mould free. Mouldy food has been known to kill wallabies. It is also important to keep "gassy" vegetables such as cabbage and broccoli to a minimum, especially if your wallaby is a part-time house pet. (Wallabies with flatulence are not fit for polite society). Bread and crackers are very bad for their teeth and should not be fed other than as an occasional vehicle to deliver supplements and medications.

Wallabies and Weather

Most people are surprised that my wallabies are able to survive and thrive through Canadian winters where it can get down to minus -20C. In fact, Bennett wallabies are very hardy. Even on very cold days they go outside and sunbathe against the south facing walls of their sheds. It is important that they have somewhere to get out of the wind and the wet but they don't need anything particularly elaborate. My insulated garden sheds are not heated but if it goes down below -10C a heat lamp is installed. If it goes below -15C, a second one is added. The lamps are plugged in to a thermostatically controlled outlet so that if it gets above -5C in the shed, the heat lamps shut off. It's not a good idea to mollycoddle outdoor animals too much in the winter and provide them with too much heat. Going from hot to cold and back again interferes with their ability to acclimatise to their environment and grow a good winter coat. It can also lead to pneumonia and frostbite. Dama wallabies don't do nearly so well in the winter. If it's below -10C they should be shut in the barn until it warms up.

Summer weather is not without it's stresses. Having grown up in England I know that the weather tends to be moderate. Canadian summers can be quite extreme, getting up to 36C during the day. Wallabies prefer moderate temperatures and will get quite stressed if they have insufficient shade and water in high temperatures.

An overheated, stressed wallaby will lick frantically at its forearms in an effort to cool itself down. In the summer, wallabies rest for most of the day in the shade and limit their playing and grazing mostly to the early hours of the morning and the evening.

Stress and Disease

For macropods, stress and disease go hand in hand. They are somewhat neurotic by nature and tend to get sick very quickly if they are stressed. Mild stress over a long period of time, such as that caused by poor nutrition or the onset of old age, will generally cause the animal to gradually deteriorate from opportunistic diseases. Extreme, acute stress such as that produced by being chased by a dog (or a stupid human) tends to bring on almost instant and progressive weakness, paralysis, coma and death. This is known as stress myopathy or is sometimes referred to as "white muscle disease". Wallabies are more able to cope with stress if they are supplemented with vitamin E. 400 IU a day is the recommended dose. 800 IU per day is given to animals that have been stressed or that are about to be stressed by shipping or capture. It is also important that they receive adequate selenium in their diet.

Lumpy jaw is another affliction common to wallabies. This bacterial infection of the cheek, teeth and jaw tends of afflict animals that are elderly, poorly nourished or otherwise stressed. Personally, I have only ever seen it in extremely geriatric wallabies of 12 years or older. . It is extremely nasty, causing wholesale destruction of large areas of flesh and bone. In its early stages it can be treated by aggressive and lengthy treatment with antibiotics and surgery to remove affected teeth and bone, but in it's latter stages it is hopeless. It can be kept under control for a while with antibiotics but eventually the antibiotics themselves will cause side effects that will necessitate the destruction of the animal. Lumpy jaw can be triggered by poor dental health. It is important for wallabies to have brush to browse on as well as grazing to maintain their teeth.

Toxoplasmosis is another disease that is of particular concern in macropods. Toxoplasmosis is a bacterium commonly carried by cats. Wallabies evolved in the absence of cats and therefore have never developed an immune reaction to this particular disease. They catch the disease from exposure to cat faeces. It causes progressive, irreversible brain damage that causes them to become increasingly more uncoordinated, go blind, and eventually die. Any attempts we have made to treat this disease have been unsuccessful. Occasionally a wallaby may get better temporarily but then have a relapse as soon as something happens to stress it. The only effective way to avoid this disease is to keep cats and their faeces away from your wallabies. An electric wire around the top of their pen will keep the cats out (and possibly the neighbours too).

Wallabies are generally not given inoculations of any kind. I have heard of people giving their wallabies tetanus shots but I've never done that personally. They can be wormed but I prefer not to do it routinely but only when needed. I take stool samples to my vet periodically and he checks it for parasites. To date, it has never been necessary to worm them. It is safe to use Ivermectin on wallabies.

For more information on wallabies and other marsupials, visit my web site at www.pygmypets.com

Further Reading

Kangaroos: The Marvelous Mob by Terry Domico and Mark Newman. Published by Facts On File, Inc.

Caring for Kangaroos and Wallabies By Anne and Ray Williams. Published by Kangaroo Press (Australia).