We Eat, Fart & Poo. Just Like You!
Autumn and winter sunrises here in Australia a pure magic. Add to that some little kangaroo joeys that have just finished their milk bottles and are ready to explore the morning walking with their mumma just like the wild ones do. . . well that’s nothing short of perfection. It was important to me to walk them around just as the sun was peeking over the horizon when they could see the wild mob. There was so much to learn from watching the bigger kangaroos, those that they would eventually know as their own family.
I think one of the many things that draws us humans to kangaroos is that they stand on two feet, just like us. They use their hands to grab and hold things, not with our dexterity of course, but it is so familiar to watch.
Mmmmmm bottle time!! And yes, when Maxie grabs my fingers like that… it does hurt just a little bit. But he is so excited to be having that bottle!
Watching Indie with that long grass makes me think of kids eating spaghetti. How content is she?! YUM!!
At this age they love tasting different grasses, leaves and flowers. They are naturally absorbing different nutrients and fibres along with microbes to help their gut health.
When kangaroos are babies hanging out of their mother’s pouch, the first thing they ingest is dirt. Dirt contains the microbes that help their digestive system work. I watch kangaroo mothers on our property stand over dirt and disintegrating mulch piles, lean over to consciously make sure that their baby is nibbling on the healthy fungi.
This video is a perfect example of that. I loved having this mulch pile up the small hill from my kitchen window. I watched so many mothers stand there letting their little bubs lick and taste the disintegrating bark (this wasn’t mulch bought at a store either, this was from some tree branch cleanup done on our property that was mulched).
And that roo there at the bottom looking at you. . . that’s Maxie Roo when he was 13 months old.
But there is a particularly exciting reveal in this video if you watch it all the way through. SO ENJOY!
As they grow and even as adults, if their tummy is upset (making for a sloppy poo), they find some good dirt to eat and typically that fixes the situation quite quickly. Here is Indie after a rainstorm consuming a bit of mud quite happily.
Followed by a tasty stick! (I do love watching them use their hands).
Did I forget the stretch and scratch? Well here is Maxie Roo having a good morning scratch when he was 8 months old. And of course if you haven’t witnessed it already, Maxie’s startling first FART in front of me is on The Real Maxie Roo page of this journal.
And this is what a morning stretch looks like for Zeus, the full grown alpha male kangaroo at our property. Maxie Roo has 8 more years of growing to do before he might reach this size. Zeus stands over 2 meters tall when he stretches out like this. Not all males develop this kind of muscle, some win the genetic lottery and they are the ones that ultimately become the mob boss.
Sorry about the reflection, I took this at my kitchen window.
