Who doesn’t know Kangaroos? We all know that this animal is found only in AuWho doesn’t know Kangaroos? We all know that this animal is found only in Australia, which is also used as the national trademark and popular reason to travel for animal vacation. We like to pictured Kangaroos as a tough boxer (fun fact: they do like to box) with their muscular tail, strong leg, and large feet, but we cannot resist their cuteness with their pointed ears that flipping when they jumped around like a big rabbit!
As a large marsupial and also a mammal, the female kangaroos — or also known as does, flyers, or the cool one; jills— have pouches that contain the mammary glands for their young to live for a while. There are some species of kangaroos. We might familiar with the antilopine kangaroo, red kangaroo, eastern gray kangaroo, and also western gray kangaroo.
Kangaroos are plant-eater or herbivores. They like to eat grass, flowers, moss, leaves, and ferns. Since their diet mostly contains a low protein with high fibers, kangaroos also counted as ruminants just like cows or goat. They have to re-chew their food back before swallowing it back to their stomach to digest the food completely.
The mother kangaroo is able to determine the sex of her young offspring. Study found that when she mates she will want of her young to be a girl. And as she gets older, she will want to have a boy. It is also known that the mother will strongly be attached to her kids. If she cannot find one of her babies, she will spend her time looking for it until forget to feed herself. Mother’s power!So now we know what is kangaroos and their feeding habit as general. We know that they are counted in marsupials group along with other marsupials such as the wombat, the koala, the opossum, and the wallaby.
Kangaroos are also mammals. One thing that is common for all type of mammals is their youngs need milk for their mothers. What about baby kangaroos? Here are some facts you might want to know about them.
5 facts of kangaroo babies feeding habit
1. Where’s the milk comes from?
The female kangaroos have a pouch in their belly, or also known as Marsupium which is the Latin word that means ‘pouch’. This pouch is not only for keeping their babies while jumping around. But also has mammary glands in it, where the milk is produced. This is the only food that will be given to the younger kangaroos before they start to eat the solid one.
2. How does the baby drink it?
The newborn baby kangaroo is so small which is about the size of a lima bean, with weighted about .03 ounces and blind. The baby will be tucked in the mother’s pouch to keep them safe and secure before it big enough to come out from the pouch. After being born, the newly born babies’ mouth will be automatically attached to one of the tits in the mother’s pouch. The pouch’s size and muscles are designed to fit the babies’ mouth with the one nipple so the baby doesn’t have to suck the nipple to get the milk to their mouth. The baby can keep on drinking the milk and doesn’t even have to try!
But it doesn’t last forever. After about 8 months, the baby –or no longer a baby, now it’s called ‘joey’, or younger kangaroo–, will have to come out from the pouch sometimes and spend more time in the outside. The joey will remail near the mother until it big enough the stay out of the pouch.
3. Different milk formula for each kid!
There’s can be a twin joey. Each of the babies will be born in a different time, likely each of joeys will have 9 until 12 months apart. The 1-year-old or the big sibling will leave the pouch before the younger is born. When the mother has two joeys with different ages, she can produce different milk with different nutrients for each of kids since every stage of ages needs different nutrition requirements. The little newborn one will have the watery, simple carb, high protein, and immunity-rich milk, the older one (in the pouch) will get the milk that is high in carb and protein with some fat, and the big boy (or girl) who is already on its foot get massive protein and fat with low carb milk. This milk is able to come out from different nipples at the same time.
4. How does the big one get the milk?
The big boy still need to drink milk after all! So after they big joeys stay out of the pouch, they need to shove their head inside the pouch to suckle the milk from the nipple. But since the nipples are able to stretch as the joeys grow, sometimes they can hang out of the pouch. The big joey will nurse until about 18 months old.
5. Try to eat the solid food
As soon as the young are getting furrier and often sticks its head out of the mother’s pouch, the joey can start eating the solid food like grass. Normally joey will eat grass in the pouch along with the mother when she bends over to feed herself.
That’s all the five facts of kangaroo babies feeding habit. Now we know that the mother’s pouch is not only for keeping and carrying the baby around but also to feed the joey especially the newborn one. We also know that the mothers are able to produce different milk for their babies according to their ages.
There are so many of them; about twenty million kangaroos, especially the gray and red kangaroos because now there are fewer wild dogs (or also known as dingos) hunting them. But sadly, the wondiwoi tree-kangaroo, officially declared extinct in 2018 by the IUCN.