A pet kangaroo who escaped his enclosure Wednesday was found Friday night and was home by early Saturday.
Chesney and Kenny are indoor kangaroos.
The kangaroo stayed within a 2-mile radius the entire time he was missing, said Debbie Marland, who opened Sunshine Farm petting zoo last June near Necedah, Wisconsin, 90 miles northwest of Madison.
Chesney was spotted by drone operators who had been involved in the search from the start, Marland said in a Facebook post.
Once spotted, a drone operator put an eight-person search team in position to form a circle around him, she said.
"Unfortunately, Chesney had other plans and was way quicker than us," Marland wrote, adding that once they came close, with one of the searchers diving onto him, "he snuck out of the grip."
After pinpointing him, the search took two hours, she wrote in a later post. "We just finished at 1 a.m."
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Marland thanked the "incredible drone flyers" and everyone who searched and lent support.
Kangaroos Kenny and Chesney live in Debbie Marland's home.
"To all our drone pilots bless your souls, the hours you put in to locate him daily and the tedious searching was just incredible," she wrote.
She said Saturday that Chesney was home safely "and taking the biggest nap after some food. He is not hurt and looks healthy as can be."
Chesney left his brother Kenny at about 11:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, jumping his 8-foot enclosure after two unfamiliar dogs came onto Marland's property.
The dogs approached the enclosure in an aggressive way, she said. "They were hunting dogs and spooked Chesney to the point where he scaled his enclosure walls and scaled his fencing and hopped out and started running."
Marland said the kangaroos are the smallest animals at her zoo. They are named after country music star Kenny Chesney, and are about 16 and 18 months old. Marland has had them since they were each about 6 months old, she said.
Chesney wears a diaper indoors.
"They were bottle fed by me and raised by me, and they live in the house with five of my Labradors," Marland said Thursday.
The two kangaroos live in Marland's home fulltime but go outside in nice weather or when the petting zoo is open, she said.
The Juneau County Sheriff's Office, which put out a BOLO (be on the lookout) alert on social media Thursday wrote Saturday: "Chesney the kangaroo has officially been found ... Apparently his dramatic ‘I’m running away to start a new life’ phase is over. Honestly, we’ve all had those days. He’s safe, he’s headed home, and hopefully he’s ready to retire from his brief career as a fugitive."
In 2007, the State Journal reported on a broken-tailed baby kangaroo named "Jackaroo" who slipped through a partly open van door after visiting a chiropractor for advice on his tail. He didn't get far.
Jackaroo had been purchased from a Missouri farm as a rehabilitation project by the owners of an exotic animal hobby farm in the Dodge County town of Calamus.
