Brand new joey

We saw our local female Eastern Grey Kangaroo with her new joey looking out into the world for the first time yesterday. Today she was back in the garden, with the joey nosing about.

Her older joey is almost her size. When the older sibling got too close, she swatted it and received a deferential cough. These roos develop more slowly than their cousins the Red. The joey won’t leave the pouch for 11 months, and are weaned off after more than a year and a half. She will have an embryo, quiescent while she is lactating. It is born when the young leaves the pouch permanently.

There are 47 varieties of kangaroo, ranging in size from a one kilo rock wallaby to the 6-foot, 140 kilo Red Kangaroo. The Eastern Grey, Macropus giganteus is between one to two and a half metres and weighs between 18 and 95 kilos.