Kangaroo Thinks She’s a Sheep DOG, Rides one of Them, Rounds Up an 800-strong Herd
Young Aussie farmer snaps image of kangaroo herding sheep into a pen. The ‘sheepdog’ kangaroo was seen riding one of them as he led the sheep. Kangaroos are seen in the farm all the time but not like this said the farmer.
A young Australian farmer has snapped an unbelievable photo of a 5ft tall kangaroo steering 800-strong pack of sheep in rural New South Wales. Lochie Ireson, a 19-year-old jackaroo from Booligal about 800km west of Sydney, quickly whipped out his phone to snap a photograph of the bizarre sight and his perfectly timed image shows the roo standing on one of the animal’s backs.
‘We had seen the roo in the field and I didn’t think anything of it, but then as we mustered the sheep in for wool classing it jumped up and started coming in with them,’ Mr Ireson said. The 19-year-old farmer whipped out his phone to snap a photograph of the bizarre sight
The ‘sheepdog’ kangaroo can be seen moving with the herd of sheep at a farm last Tuesday ‘As we herded the sheep into the pen it was there too, and it started jumping all over the sheep.’ It was bouncing all around on them as we herded them into smaller and smaller pens – I have never seen anything like it.
‘We normally use motorbikes and sheepdogs to herd the sheep, so it was the first time we had a kangaroo helping us there.’ The dogs were looking at it like, “What’s going on”, they were so confused, and the sheep were thinking, “What is this”, and trying to run away.
‘We were joking it was trying to be a sheepdog, it was a real life woolly jumper. We’ll have to get an emu herding the sheep next.’ Agricultural worker Mr Ireson recently returned to Booligal from the Northern Territory after he was injured in a cow rodeo and had to come home for surgery.
Aussie farmer Lochie Ireson couldn’t believe his eyes when he spotted the 5f5in adult male marsupial steering the 800-strong pack in Booligal, New South Wales on Tuesday
Kangaroos are seen in the farm all the time but never like this said the shocked farmer He was not the only one left gobsmacked by his encounter with the 170 cm-tall kangaroo and said the experienced farm workers he was with were equally shocked to witness the hilarious sight.
After the kangaroo herded the sheep into a small corridor pen for classification the workers jokingly categorised its wool too – but unsurprisingly found it lacking.’Afterwards we let the kangaroo back out into the pasture and it hopped off – it was pretty funny,’ Mr Ireson said.
The bizarre sighting was immediately captured by the a young 19-year-old farmer in NSW ‘I only took a few quick snaps because I was working at the time but I couldn’t believed I managed to catch one which was so perfectly timed.’
You see kangaroos on the farm all the time but never anything like this. We couldn’t believe it, it was definitely a surprise to see.’
The other guys I was with have been working with sheep all their life and all had never seen anything like it before, and it was a one off for me too.’
