A Tangled Start
Life on a lamb/sheep rescue farm teaches you to expect the unexpected—though some surprises still stop your heart.
I was tending to the lambs when I saw him: a young kangaroo suspended upside down in the ring-lock boundary fence, one foot twisted cruelly in the top wire. His toes were tangled tight, his powerful legs useless against the snare. Kangaroos caught like this often die. Their frantic struggle damages the tendons around their hips, and the stress alone can be fatal.
By the look of him, he'd been dangling there for a day—maybe two. De-hydrated from the sun, limp from exhaustion, and mercifully untouched by foxes.
Gentle Intervention
Approaching an injured kangaroo is never simple. Wild, defensive, dangerously strong—they don’t know you're trying to help. One kick from a panicked 'roo can send you flying.
I hurried to hook up the trailer to the ute.
Armed with caution, I draped a towel gently over his head to block his vision. He stilled. I snipped through the wire. He dropped to the ground and didn’t move—breathless he was free.
With quiet care, I lifted him from behind, bundled in the towel, and placed him in the trailer. Later in a protective cage, he lay there, sipping water from a bowl and resting on a pillow providing temporary comfort.
Today, that same kangaroo roams my paddocks. Towering at least six feet tall, he grazes and rests, drinking from the same dams as my rescued sheep. I’ve noticed he makes little effort to jump fences again. He’s still wild—but stays close. Not every story ends this way. But this one did. He was one of the lucky ones.
