Precious the Orphan Wallaby Joey

This week, we had an orphan wallaby joey brought into us.

During the recent severe weather, the joey was abandoned by its pod near a local resident’s house. The local tried to reunite the joey with its mother, however the pod didn’t return, so the joey was brought to us.

We have named the joey Precious (it’s a girl!) and our Wildlife Keeper Mandji will be hand-raising her until she is ready to be released with the rest of our wallaby population.

Some facts about Precious:

• She is approximately 7 months old
• She currently weighs 1kg
• She is being bottlefed, with some solid foods introduced already
• She is sleeping through the night, but is fed every 4 hours during the day
• She lives in a backpack which emulates her mother’s pouch and keeps her safe & warm

Wallaby joeys would normally stay in their mum’s pouch until they are 12 months old, so Precious still has a few months to go before she can be on her own.

In the meantime, we will keep you updated with her progress with lots of videos, photos and stories through this blog, and also on our Facebook and Instagram pages.